For those who have tried these steps:

• select different interpreter
• reboot VScode
• reinstall VScode Python extension and delete its folders

and have achieved nothing.

Probably you are working in the workspace and not in folder. You may have set interpreter at workspace level, which can't be used in one of the folders of the workspace. Try opening your folder separately from the workspace and select interpreter you want. This worked for me.

I found a way to reset VS Code such that it works again.

Step one: Reset your $PATH variable -> this is temporary because all sorts of funky stuff starts to happen if you reset this:

$cd #go to home directory

$nano .bash_profile

# while in nano:

\export PATH="[path to anaconda python3]"

# save and exit

# reset .bash_profile

$. .bash_profile

now we need to set PATH to what it was, but nanowill no longer work, so we put following into the terminal:

$usr/bin/nano ~/.bash_profile

delete the line "\export PATH="[path to anaconda python3]""

# reset .bash_profile again

$. .bash_profile

Now if you open up VS Code (or a new terminal in VS Code), it should work!

The reason for this, at least on Macs, is that the python/python3/python3.9 inside virtual environments is a symlink to the system interpreter in e.g. /opt/homebrew/bin/python3 and VSCode follows the symlink.

So the path for relative imports and all the packages in your virtual environment is now /opt/homebrew/bin instead of ./venv/bin, and so VSCode can't resolve any of the imports from your venv unless they happen to also be installed in /opt/homebrew/bin. This means you lose the "jump to definition" and similar functionality, "run this code" doesn't work, linters can't provide any kind of import-related feedback, etc.

A solution that works is to copy the python binary into the venv, rather than use symlinks. You can do this after you create the venv.

python -m venv venv
rm venv/bin/python venv/bin/python3 venv/bin/python3.9
cp /opt/homebrew/bin/python3.9 venv/bin/
ln -s venv/bin/python3.9 venv/bin/python
ln -s venv/bin/python3.9 venv/bin/python3
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r your_requirements_file.txt

Then set the python interpreter in VSCode to venv/bin/python3.9 and everything will work.

This was reported but a fix didn't garner enough votes to be implemented.

https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-python/issues/13603

Of course, change the paths and python versions in the code above as needed.

Several of the answers here explain good approaches, but below are my top 2 recommendations.

1) Bottom Screen Navigation (ease of access)

• I find this the quickest approach; however, it isn't always available for first-time users. If you're already using Python in VS Code, this is usually the easiest way to reach the Python: Select Interpreter menu. On the bottom left of your screen, look for "Python X.X.X". This is the currently detected/configured version of Python for your project, and clicking it brings you to the interpreter menu to change the Python version you're using. At the time of writing, I was using Python 3.9.1 as seen in the snippet below:

2) Command Palette

• As @jmh denoted in his answer, you can also use the 'View' tab to navigate to the Command Palette. In the Command Palette, search for Python: Select Interpreter to bring about the same menu denoted above.

If you're still having issues, there's also a VS Code Getting Started guide that walks you through setting up Virtual Environments and/or choosing different interpreters for Python that support the desired language: https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/python-tutorial

Happy coding!

At the bottom of the MS Code screen is an info bar that lets you know what line, col, text encoding, etc... It also shows the python interpreter you are accessing.

If you click on the text for the version of python that is running, it will open a list of available interpreters on your system. If 2.7 is in your path, you can select it.