The solution was to add

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.3/bin

to the my PATH.

I upgraded from OSX 10.7 to OSX 10.9 and afterwards, my installation of aws no longer worked.

I observed errors like this:

$ pip
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 5, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 2603, in <module>
working_set.require(__requires__)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 666, in require
needed = self.resolve(parse_requirements(requirements))
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/pkg_resources.py", line 565, in resolve
    raise DistributionNotFound(req)  # XXX put more info here
pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound: pip==1.5.5

The solution that the operating system upgrade had changed permissions.

Giveaway clue:

sudo pip <— worked

pip <— failed

So I did this:

sudo chmod -R a+r /Library/Python/

and then afterwards, I’m able to use the aws commands again.

Not sure if this is something that will be helpful for others, but figured I’d throw it into the mix.

When installing in a virtualenv: ‘pip install awscli’ (without sudo) worked fine on OS X; but not on CentOS release 6.6, e.g. ‘which aws’ found nothing. The solution:

chmod u+x /PATH-TO-YOUR-VIRTUALENV/bin/aws

Windows is likely the minority here, but adding below to my PATH worked for me. For reference, I installed the CLI via pip:

C:Python27Scripts

From http://docs.aws.amazon.com/cli/latest/userguide/cli-install-macos.html#awscli-install-osx-path

For Modern macos/OSX, you need to find your ~/Library/Python/$version/bin directory and add it to your $PATH. This will help you locate the one where aws got installed.

$ ls -d ~/Library/Python/*/bin/aws
/Users/bbronosky/Library/Python/3.6/bin/aws

So based on that I added this line to my .bashrc

export PATH=$HOME/Library/Python/3.6/bin:$PATH

Edit the paths file directly if you have admin rights.

Definitely go with the top answer if you don’t have admin rights, but if you do then I would highly recommend directly editing the paths files, located at /etc/paths.

Use your favorite editor and simply paste the desired path on a new line:

Sample paths file:

/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/Users/username/Library/Python/3.6/bin #new path added here at bottom of file

Paste at the top or bottom or in whatever order you would like the locations searched for binaries (in the event there are binaries with duplicate names).

Using the paths file saves you the hassle of remembering the concatenation syntax or the potential trouble if you write an faulty export statement.

This worked for me on mac:

sudo -H pip install awscli --upgrade --ignore-installed six

What I typically do is copy the executable to /usr/local/bin

cp $(find / -name aws) /usr/local/bin

I had a similar problem on windows 10. I had to add below to PATH variables

For Python:

C:UserskumarAppDataLocalProgramsPythonPython37  

For PIP:

C:UserskumarAppDataLocalProgramsPythonPython37Scripts

For awscli to work:

C:UserskumarAppDataRoamingPythonPython37Scripts

Can use pip show awscli to find the installation location.

$ pip show awscli
Name: awscli
Version: 1.16.94
Summary: Universal Command Line Environment for AWS.
Home-page: http://aws.amazon.com/cli/
Author: Amazon Web Services
Author-email: UNKNOWN
License: Apache License 2.0
Location: /root/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Requires: s3transfer, colorama, rsa, docutils, botocore, PyYAML
Required-by:

On ubuntu and installed with pip3 without sudo, the correct location to add to my path was ~/.local/bin:

export PATH=$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH

check your python version but I guessed you are using python 3.3

export PATH=$HOME/Library/Python/3.3/bin:$PATH

An alternative way is to install the aws-cli package via methods found at https://cloudacademy.com/blog/how-to-use-aws-cli/. This has worked for me 🙂

Simply download & MSI installer (64 Or 32 -bit)
Install or update the AWS CLI version 2 on Windows using the MSI installer

After installation, You may get an error "’aws’" is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

Simply check Environment variable, Variable name must be ‘PATH’ and put value "C:Program FilesAmazonAWSCLIV2"
Close command prompt window and reopen it. The problem will be resolved.

export PATH=/Users/{Computer Name}/Library/Python/2.7/bin:$PATH

On some distros, if you run pip install (without sudo), the binaries are placed in ‘~/.local/bin’, which is not typically in the user’s path — but can be added.

Using sudo pip install (root install) causes the packages to be put in ‘/usr/local/bin’, which should be in the user’s path. However, it includes this message on Ubuntu 22.04:

WARNING: Running pip as the ‘root’ user can result in
broken permissions and conflicting behaviour with the system package
manager. It is recommended to use a virtual environment instead:
https://pip.pypa.io/warnings/venv

Example commands to install and run aws in a Python virtual environment…

python3 -m venv myenv && source myenv/bin/activate
pip install awscli
aws ## use awscli
deactivate ## deactivate the virtual environment