About the PIL Error — IOError: decoder zip not available

The more detail installation PIL with zlib library in Ubuntu 64 bit :

http://obroll.com/install-python-pil-python-image-library-on-ubuntu-11-10-oneiric/

For the lazy (credits to @meawoppl for the apt-get):

$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev

sudo pip uninstall PIL
sudo pip install pillow 

^^ fixed it for me.

Pillow is a fork of PIL that is compatible with pip/setuptools and gets a little better maintenance. I haven’t seen any API differences yet.

Edit: There is one notable API difference. PIL exposes Image as a top-level namespace, so you can

import Image # in PIL only

but

from PIL import Image  # in pillow or PIL

• Thanks, Leopd!

on mac

sudo brew install lzlib     # installs zlib
pip uninstall PIL
pip install PIL

I encountered this problem on a 64bit ubuntu 13.04 desktop version and here is how I resolved it.

try to reinstall PIL, and pay attention to the output info after you reinstalled:

---------------------------------------------------------------------
PIL 1.1.7 SETUP SUMMARY
--------------------------------------------------------------------
version       1.1.7
platform      linux2 2.7.4 (default, Sep 26 2013, 03:20:26)
              [GCC 4.7.3]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*** TKINTER support not available
--- JPEG support available
*** ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support not available
--- FREETYPE2 support available
*** LITTLECMS support not available
--------------------------------------------------------------------

notice that there is a line :*** ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support not available,
which means PIL have been built without ZLIB support, and I fixed it by doing this:

first you should have these packages install: libjpeg-dev libfreetype6-dev zlib1g-dev

sudo apt-get install python-dev libjpeg-dev libfreetype6-dev zlib1g-dev

# create these links, if already exists, remove it and re-link it
ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so /usr/lib
ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libfreetype.so /usr/lib
ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so /usr/lib

# reinstall PIL
pip uninstall PIL
pip install PIL

This time, there should be a line --- ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support available in the output.

Reference: http://jj.isgeek.net/2011/09/install-pil-with-jpeg-support-on-ubuntu-oneiric-64bits/

The way I fixed this on OS X Mavericks was by doing this:

Install brew:

http://brew.sh/

Install pip:

http://www.pip-installer.org/en/latest/installing.html

With those in place, you can do this:

sudo brew install lzlib     # installs zlib
pip uninstall PIL
pip install --no-index -f http://dist.plone.org/thirdparty/ -U PIL

After that, it was working fine. For an explanation of the third line, check this answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/2486396/290072

on my case, i just remore python-image, make sure that libz is ready then reinstall PIL, more detail you can see on my post here :

http://febru.soluvas.com/2014/03/solved-openerp-7-ioerror-decoder-zip.html

Mac OS X PIL JEPG and PNG issues (same for linux os), this Post help me out of both PNG and JPEG issues with PIL :
decoder zip not available and decoder jpeg not available

Make sure JPEG and ZLIB are available, when you install / reinstall PIL :

$ cd Imaging-1.1.7
$ python setup.py build_ext -i
$ python selftest.py

--------------------------------------------------------------------
--- TKINTER support available
--- JPEG support available
--- ZLIB (PNG/ZIP) support available
*** FREETYPE2 support not available
*** LITTLECMS support not available
--------------------------------------------------------------------

I encountered same problem. It seems to me that Pillow and pillow (different case in ‘p’) are two different packages. So, if you are using Pillow, pip install pillow might not help. Here is my solution:

$ pip uninstall Pillow
$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg-dev zlib1g-dev
$ pip install -I Pillow

First two lines are to remove any pillow or Pillow package.

Third line is to install the two required packages.

Forth is re-install Pillow.

Note, if you are using virtualenv, pip install/uninstall must be run under virtualenv

I use 64bit ubuntu 14.04LTS desktop version, and I tried Johnny Zhao’s answer.
When

exec sudo easy_install PIL

I got an error:

can't find freetype/fterrors.h

and I find freetype2 in /usr/include/

You could solve it by:

sudo ln -s /usr/include/freetype2 /usr/include/freetype

then install will be success

The cause may be you’ve installed Pillow without zlib support.

On CentOS 7:

yum install zlib zlib-devel
pip install Pillow --upgrade

And if you are using for a webapp restart your webserver to apply.

I tried the version 2.8.0 it works fine me

pip install -Iv Pillow==2.8.0

On Ubuntu 18 I have had to install pillow 2.8.1:

pip install Pillow==2.8.1

Try:

$ sudo apt-get install python-dev
$ sudo apt-get install libjpeg8-dev
$ sudo ln -s /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libjpeg.so /usr/lib

Starting from version 3.0.0 Pillow needs libjpeg. If the issue persists, there might be some package incompatibility. Save some time and try the previous version:

$ pip install Pillow==2.8.1


You should match Pillow’s version your python version.

On MacOS Monterey (12.2) installing rather old Pillow version 2.8.2 required following procedure:

• I needed to install zlib first:

  brew install zlib
  

• to get information where inludes/libs are stored:

  brew info zlib
  

  I found information as:

  For compilers to find zlib you may need to set:
  export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/lib"
  export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/include"
  

• I wanted to be sure so I checked if zlib.hexists:

  ls -al /opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/include/zlib.h
  

• based on information from previous steps setup C/C++ build_ext environment variables, in my case this was:

  export LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/lib"
  export CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/include"
  export CFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/include"
  

  NOTE: I needed to add CFLAGS too, probably due C compiler is used (Pillow <=5.*), not C++.

• finally build it (note that --no-cache-dir will force download and build):

  pip install --no-cache-dir --force "Pillow==2.8.2" 
  

• Note that zlib is required starting with Pillow 3+, so 2.8.2 will not
  complain if zlib is not found (versions 3+ will stop build).
  Therefore after build/install is done one should test if zip_decoder is
  available like this:

  python -c "from PIL import _imaging as x; print(x.zip_decoder); print('OK')"
  

Additionally

Single shell command which will redownload and rebuild everyting:

LDFLAGS="-L/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/lib" 
CPPFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/include" 
CFLAGS="-I/opt/homebrew/opt/zlib/include" 
pip install --no-cache-dir --force "Pillow==2.8.2" 

Another alternative would be to symlink zlib include/lib files/folders to appropriate standard include/lib files/folders.