How to Install Python on Windows and macOS

Python is a foundational tool in digital forensics. Many open-source parsers, including iLEAPP, ALEAPP, VLEAPP, and RLEAPP, run on it. Here is how to install it correctly.

Windows

1. Go to the official download page: python.org/downloads.
2. Download the latest Python 3 installer for Windows.
3. Run the installer.
4. Important: check the box labeled Add python.exe to PATH on the first screen.
5. Click Install Now.
6. When it finishes, open Command Prompt and run python --version to confirm the install.

macOS

1. Go to python.org/downloads/macos.
2. Download the latest macOS installer (a .pkg file).
3. Open it and follow the prompts.
4. Open Terminal and run python3 --version.
5. If it prints a version number, Python is installed.

Tips

• pip, Python's package manager, is included with the installer. Run pip --version (or pip3 on macOS) to check.
• Don't need to code? iLEAPP, ALEAPP, VLEAPP, and RLEAPP now ship ready-to-run releases at leapps.org/releases, so you can use them without installing Python. Python matters when you want to run them from source or modify a parser.
• Most LEAPP tools list their dependencies in a requirements.txt file. Install them with pip install -r requirements.txt from the tool's folder.
• For editing scripts, Visual Studio Code and PyCharm are both good choices.

Once Python is set up, head to the Tools page to find parsers to try.