The more easy way its by executing the next command:

ls -ls /usr/bin/python*

Output look like this:

/usr/bin/python           /usr/bin/python2.7        /usr/bin/pythonw
/usr/bin/python-config    /usr/bin/python2.7-config /usr/bin/pythonw2.7
Answer from Gabriel Caceres on Stack Overflow
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freeCodeCamp
freecodecamp.org › news › check-python-version-how-to-check-py-in-mac-windows-and-linux
Check Python Version – How to Check Py in Mac, Windows, and Linux
July 7, 2023 - This command will display the path of the Python executable file. By default, Python is installed in the "C:\PythonXX" directory, where "XX" represents the version number. If the command doesn't return any result, it means Python is not installed or not added to the system's PATH environment variable.
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GitHub
github.com › pyenv › pyenv
GitHub - pyenv/pyenv: Simple Python version management · GitHub
December 27, 2025 - To install additional Python versions, use pyenv install. For example, to download and install Python 3.10.4, run: ... Running pyenv install -l gives the list of all available versions.
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Discussions

Switching between versions of python installed from microsoft store
As a standard, it is recommended to use the python3 command or python3.7 to select a specific version. The py.exe launcher will automatically select the most recent version of Python you've installed. You can also use commands like py -3.7 to select a particular version, or py --list to see which ... More on learn.microsoft.com
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February 8, 2021
Is there a way of getting a list of maintained Python versions? - Core Development - Discussions on Python.org
I want to get a list of the currently-active Python versions. I can get the information I want from Download Python | Python.org (the “Active Python Releases” section of that page) or from Python Developer's Guide, but is the information available in a more machine readable form anywhere? More on discuss.python.org
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June 13, 2022
Managing multiple python versions on Windows
Use the py launcher, if you run ‘py -0’ you should get a list of the pythons installed, you can select the one you want to use by doing ‘py -3.10 main.py’ , ‘py -3.13 -m pip install …’ and so on More on reddit.com
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March 18, 2025
As of February 2021, which python version is the most recommended?

ive used 3.7 for a long time now and i love it

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Python
devguide.python.org › versions
Status of Python versions
The main branch is currently the future Python 3.15, and is the only branch that accepts new features. The latest release for each Python version can be found on the download page.(See below for a ...
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Medium
medium.com › @akhshyganesh › find-all-python-versions-on-your-system-like-a-pro-2c4d10650035
Find All Python Versions on Your System Like a Pro | by Akhshy Ganesh | Medium
June 12, 2025 - In this quick guide, I’ll walk you through how to track down every sneaky little Python version hiding on your machine. Whether you’re on Windows, macOS, or Linux — we’ve got you covered. Over time, you’ve probably installed Python for different projects. One for data science, one for that Flask API you built last year, and maybe another one by accident when installing VS Code. It’s normal. It’s Pythonic. But you need to know what’s where to avoid chaos. ... This lists all the python.exe files that your system knows about.
Find elsewhere
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Python
python.org › doc › versions
Python documentation by version | Python.org
Some previous versions of the documentation remain available online. Use the list below to select a version to view. For unreleased (in development) documentation, see In development versions. ... The Python Software Foundation is the organization behind Python.
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Quora
quora.com › How-do-you-check-if-Python-is-installed-in-Ubuntu
How to check if Python is installed in Ubuntu - Quora
Internally in your script, you can use sys.version_info: [code]$ python3 Python 3.10.4 (main, Apr 2 2022, 09:04:19) [GCC 11.2.0] on linux Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
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Hackers and Slackers
hackersandslackers.com › multiple-python-versions-ubuntu-20-04
Managing Multiple Versions of Python on Ubuntu 20.04
August 20, 2023 - To pick up the versions of Python that Deadsnakes makes visible to us, we still need to run a quick update: ... $ apt list | grep python3.10 WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.
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Python.org
discuss.python.org › core development
Is there a way of getting a list of maintained Python versions? - Core Development - Discussions on Python.org
June 13, 2022 - I want to get a list of the currently-active Python versions. I can get the information I want from Download Python | Python.org (the “Active Python Releases” section of that page) or from Python Developer's Guide, but i…
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Webucator
webucator.com › catalog › programming › python
How to find all your Python installations on Windows (and Mac) | Webucator
C:\> Get-ChildItem -Path C:\ -Filter site.py -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force Directory: C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Workbench 8.0 CE\python\lib Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a--- 9/16/2017 7:38 PM 19168 site.py Directory: C:\Users\ndunn\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\Lib Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a--- 9/7/2020 11:16 PM 21963 site.py Directory: C:\Users\ndunn\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python39\Lib Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a--- 6/28/2021 4:06 PM 22207 site.py
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SuperOps
superops.com › superops blog › blog › how to check the python version?
How to check the Python version in quick and easy steps
3 days ago - The most common Mac package manager is Homebrew. To see which Python version is installed by Homebrew: 1. Use the “brew list –versions python” command or “brew info python”.
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › History_of_Python
History of Python - Wikipedia
4 days ago - Python 2.0 was released on October 16, 2000, with many major new features, such as list comprehensions, cycle-detecting garbage collector, reference counting, memory management and support for Unicode, along with a change to the development process itself, with a shift to a more transparent and community-backed process. Python 3.0, a major, backwards-incompatible release, was released on December 3, 2008 after a long period of testing. Many of its major features were also backported to the backwards-compatible Python versions 2.6 and 2.7 until support for Python 2 finally ceased at the beginning of 2020.
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Linux Mint Forums
forums.linuxmint.com › board index › main edition support › beginner questions
Multiple versions of python installed? - Linux Mint Forums
May 8, 2021 - python --version python2 --version python3 --version python3.8 --version python3.9 --version How did you install numpy (with pip or pip3) and how are you trying to run your code?
Top answer
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You can use python -V (et al.) to show you the version of Python that the python command resolves to. If that's all you need, you're done. But to see every version of python in your system takes a bit more.

In Ubuntu we can check the resolution with readlink -f $(which python). In default cases in 14.04 this will simply point to /usr/bin/python2.7.

We can chain this in to show the version of that version of Python:

$ readlink -f $(which python) | xargs -I % sh -c 'echo -n "%: "; % -V'
/usr/bin/python2.7: Python 2.7.6

But this is still only telling us what our current python resolution is. If we were in a Virtualenv (a common Python stack management system) python might resolve to a different version:

$ readlink -f $(which python) | xargs -I % sh -c 'echo -n "%: "; % -V'
/home/oli/venv/bin/python: Python 2.7.4

This is real output.

The fact is there could be hundreds of different versions of Python secreted around your system, either on paths that are contextually added, or living under different binary names (like python3).

If we assume that a Python binary is always going to be called python<something> and be a binary file, we can just search the entire system for files that match those criteria:

$ sudo find / -type f -executable -iname 'python*' -exec file -i '{}' \; | awk -F: '/x-executable; charset=binary/ {print $1}' | xargs readlink -f | sort -u | xargs -I % sh -c 'echo -n "%: "; % -V'
/home/oli/venv/bin/python: Python 2.7.4
/media/ned/websites/venvold/bin/python: Python 2.7.4
/srv/chroot/precise_i386/usr/bin/python2.7: Python 2.7.3
/srv/chroot/trusty_i386/usr/bin/python2.7: Python 2.7.6
/srv/chroot/trusty_i386/usr/bin/python3.4: Python 3.4.0
/srv/chroot/trusty_i386/usr/bin/python3.4m: Python 3.4.0
/usr/bin/python2.7: Python 2.7.6
/usr/bin/python2.7-dbg: Python 2.7.6
/usr/bin/python3.4: Python 3.4.0
/usr/bin/python3.4dm: Python 3.4.0
/usr/bin/python3.4m: Python 3.4.0
/web/venvold/bin/python: Python 2.7.4

It's obviously a pretty hideous command but this is again real output and it seems to have done a fairly thorough job.

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Type following in the terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

python -V

or

python --version

You can find a list of options/parameters for many commands in the terminal by typing the command followed by --help

Example:

python --help

Manual/manpages also available for most of such CLI which can be displayed by man <command> (Ex: man python)

From man python:

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
        -V ,  --version
              Prints the Python version number of the executable and exits.

There is also python3 installed on many machines, so you can do:

python3 --version

to find out what python 3.x you are running.

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Syncro
syncrosecure.com › home › blog › how to check python version
How to Check Python Version | Syncro
April 25, 2025 - For Windows: Use the “winget” command or check Python via the Apps & Features settings. For Linux: apt list –installed | grep python (for detailed version management, use “dpkg-query -l | grep ...
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PyPI
pypi.org › project › check-python-versions
check-python-versions
JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Please enable JavaScript to proceed · A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/learnpython › managing multiple python versions on windows
r/learnpython on Reddit: Managing multiple python versions on Windows
March 18, 2025 -

I've coded a bit in Python for years, and had an existing installation of 3.10.7 which I installed using Chocolatey some time ago.

Then I thought I would play with WhisperX. The tutorial I found walked me through installing Anaconda, which I did not realize would install a second copy of Python, this time 3.12. It broke a couple of existing projects, and so I gave up on WhisperX and swapped the PATH variable back to the 3.10 installation.

Then, last week, I read about Gemma3 and thought I might experiment with that. I found a blog post -- can you see where this is going? -- that pointed me to Ollama. Which I installed, once again not realizing it would install yet another copy of Python, this time 3.13. It didn't break my projects this time, but I think that's because the user-level PATH variable is still pointing at 3.10 while the system-level PATH variable is pointing at 3.13. Oh, and I never got Gemma3 up and running, possibly because it doesn't like 3.10.

So now I have three copies of Python installed, they're fighting with one another over the PATH variable, and I still haven't gotten to experiment with local AI stuff. There's got to be a better way to manage these things.

My googling so far has pointed me at pyenv, which as far as I can tell is a Linux-only utility. I think. I love me some Linux, but the machine in question is a Windows box. Is there some obvious utility I should be using for swapping back and forth between versions that I'm just not finding?