Installation

The Installation section explains how to set up EnMAP‑Box as a QGIS plugin on your computer. It guides you through installing a compatible QGIS version, preparing the required Python environment, and then adding EnMAP‑Box via the QGIS Plugin Manager or from a specific release.

1. QGIS and Python Dependencies

Install QGIS via the official Standalone/OSGeo4W Installer

Install the current QGIS 3.44 LTR to run the latest EnMAP-Box using the QGIS installer from https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/alldownloads.html#windows.

For beginners, we recommend using the standalone installers. More advanced QGIS users can use OSGeo4W installer, which eases updates of existing QGIS installation.

In case you have an outdated QGIS, make sure to install a current version (3.44).

Install Python Dependencies

Close QGIS, if it is open.

Search for OSGeo4W shell from the start menu. In case the OSgeo4W does not exists, run the Setup to install it.
Open the OSGeo4 shell and to install Python dependencies using PIP:
pip install --upgrade --user -r https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EnMAP-Box/enmap-box/main/.env/osgeo4w/requirements_osgeo4w.txt
Note

In rare cases, the user folder may contain wrongly installed packages, which are interfering with the package version managed by OSGeo4W, e.g. numpy, scipy or gdal. Wrongly installed packages can be deleted manually from the user folder.

To locate the user folder used by your QGIS instance, run the following inside your QGIS Python console:
>>> import site
>>> print(site.USER_SITE)
C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python39\site-packages
Open QGIS from the start menu. If you are running into Installation issues, check out the FAQ & Troubleshooting for help.

Install QGIS on Linux

Install QGIS as described here https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/alldownloads.html#debian-ubuntu or follow the instructions for conda.

Install Python Dependencies

Open the Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).
Make sure the following packages are installed using the system package manager:
sudo apt install python3-pip python3-venv pyqt5-dev-tools python3-matplotlib
(Optional) For some EnMAP-Box tools you may also need the following packages:
sudo apt install python3-h5py python3-pyqt5.qtopengl python3-netcdf4
Open QGIS and the QGIS Python Console (Ctrl + Alt + P). Type the following and confirm with enter:
import sys; sys.executable
This shows the path of the Python executable that QGIS is using, usually it is /usr/bin/python3. We need to ensure that additional Python packages get installed into the same Python environment. This is the case if the command which python3 returns the path of the Python executable shown in QGIS!

If not, please use the full path, e.g. /usr/bin/python3 instead of python3 in the following steps.

Close QGIS.
Create a virtual python environment in a directory of your choice (e.g. ~/.virtualenvs/enmapbox):
python3 -m venv --upgrade-deps --system-site-packages ~/.virtualenvs/enmapbox
Activate the environment:
source ~/.virtualenvs/enmapbox/bin/activate
Now you should see the environment name in brackets at the beginning of your prompt, e.g. (enmapbox).
Install missing Python dependencies with pip inside the virtual environment:
python3 -m pip install -r https://raw.githubusercontent.com/EnMAP-Box/enmap-box/main/.env/linux/requirements_ubuntu.txt
Start QGIS (from the activated environment, see step 6):
qgis
Hint

You can add a shortcut to your applications menu, so you do not have to open a Terminal and type the above-mentioned commands (6 & 8) every time you want to start QGIS with the EnMAP-Box environment:

Create the file ~/.local/share/applications/enmapbox.desktop with the following content (if you used another installation path in the instructions above, change accordingly):
[Desktop Entry]
Name=QGIS (EnMAP-Box)
Exec=/bin/bash -c "source ~/.virtualenvs/enmapbox/bin/activate && qgis %F"
Terminal=false
Icon=qgis
Type=Application
Categories=Education;Science;Geography;

Warning

The internal Python environment in macOS QGIS.app’s restricts isolated package builds, but these are required by EnMAP-Box applications like the EnMAP Processing Tool (EnPT).

We therefore recommend to install QGIS and the Python dependencies required to run the EnMAP-Box using Conda (see the *Conda* tab). This is significantly easier to manage, update, and resolve QGIS and dependency versions over time.

Install QGIS on MacOS

Install QGIS using the official macOS installer (e.g., version 3.44 LTR) from the QGIS Download Page. Download the .dmg file, open it, and drag QGIS to your Applications folder.

Install Python Dependencies

Modern QGIS installations on macOS embed Python deeply within the application framework, meaning traditional terminal commands (like calling pip3 from the bin folder) are no longer reliable. To safely install dependencies to the correct environment, you must execute the installation directly from within QGIS.

Launch QGIS.
Navigate to Plugins ‣ Python Console in the top menu bar.
Copy the script below, paste it into the console prompt (>>>), and press Enter:

import sys
import os
import runpy

# 1. Manually create the missing 'bin' directory so pip stops crashing
broken_bin_path = "/Applications/QGIS.app/Contents/Frameworks/bin"
os.makedirs(broken_bin_path, exist_ok=True)

print("Created missing bin directory. Finishing installation...")

original_argv = sys.argv
enmap_packages = [
    "colorama", "astropy", "PyOpenGL", "xgboost", "lightgbm",
    "catboost", "sympy", "numba>=0.57", "scikit-learn>=1.0"
]

# 2. run pip with a flag to silence the script warnings
sys.argv = ["pip", "install", "-U", "--no-warn-script-location"] + enmap_packages

try:
    runpy.run_module("pip", run_name="__main__")
except SystemExit:
    pass
except Exception as e:
    print(f"An error occurred: {e}")
finally:
    sys.argv = original_argv
    print("=========================================")
    print("All packages are now fully installed!")
    print("You can safely activate EnMAP-Box 3.")
    print("=========================================")

Wait for the packages to download and compile. Once the console prints the success message, you can close the Python Console.

Install QGIS and Python dependencies with conda (cross-platform)

Conda is a cross-platform package manager that allows to install software in separated environments. We recommend to install and use Miniforge, a minimal conda installer specific to packages from conda-forge channel. It contains a meta-package for packages needed by the EnMAP-Box https://anaconda.org/channels/conda-forge/packages/enmapbox

Open a conda terminal and create a conda environment that contains QGIS and all required packages.
1. Use the enmapbox recipe to install packages required to run the EnMAP-Box, including EnPT, EnFROSP, SpecDeepMap
```
conda create -n enmapbox -c conda-forge enmapbox
```
2. Use the enmapbox-lite recipe to install packages required to run the EnMAP-Box and most machine-learning applications
```
conda create -n enmapbox -c conda-forge enmapbox-lite
```
Activate the conda environment and start QGIS:

conda activate enmapbox
qgis

Note

QGIS, GDAL and other packages are developing rapidly. To keep an environment <env_name> up to date, call:

conda activate <env_name>
(<env_name>) conda update --all

To delete a conda environment, call:

conda env remove -n <env_name>

To use a specific package version, call conda install <package>=<version>. Such a step may require an update of various other packages. For example to use a specific QGIS version, call:

conda activate <env_name>
(<env_name) conda install qgis=3.40

2. Install EnMAP-Box

Install EnMAP-Box Plugin via the QGIS Plugin Manager

Start QGIS
Go to Plugins -> Manage and Install Plugins
Search for ‘EnMAP-Box’
Click on ‘Install Plugin’

Activate Experimental Plugins (Optional)

Go to Plugins -> Manage and Install Plugins -> Settings
Enable Show also Experimental Plugins

The install the qgis-plugin-manager allows to install QGIS plugins like the EnMAP-Box from the command line:

**Install EnMAP-Box Plugin via the QGIS Plugin Manager**

# define the path where your plugins are stored
export QGIS_PLUGINPATH=~/.local/share/QGIS/QGIS3/profiles/default/python/plugins
mkdir $QGIS_PLUGINPATH

# install the 3Liz qgis-plugin-manager
conda install qgis-plugin-manager
qgis-plugin-manager init
qgis-plugin-manager update

# install the EnMAP-Box
qgis-plugin-manger install 'EnMAP-Box 3'