How to properly install PyAudio for the latest version of Python?

Question

I was using speech_recognition with the latest version of Python (3.9). And for some reason, pip did not (still does not) allow me to install pyaudio .

sample of the error message:

_portaudiomodule.c
    c:\program files\python39\include\pyconfig.h(117): warning C4005: 'MS_WIN64': macro redefinition
    src/_portaudiomodule.c: note: see previous definition of 'MS_WIN64'
    src/_portaudiomodule.c(29): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'portaudio.h': No such file or directory
    error: command 'C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Visual Studio\\2017\\BuildTools\\VC\\Tools\\MSVC\\14.16.27023\\bin\\HostX86\\x64\\cl.exe' failed with exit code 2
    ----------------------------------------

It has been meaningless for me to look for what portaudio.h does. Here is the solution. I hope you don't waste your time like I did.

Answer 1

The reason is pip gets the packages from PyPi . And PyPi does not have PyAudio package that supports Python 3.9 . This is why, it is useless to try and install pyaudio with pip install pyaudio . What you should do, instead, is you go to Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages page and download the pip wheel:

last step is to run

pip install [insert pyaudio wheel directory]\pyAudio-0.2.11-cp39-cp39-win_amd64.whl

You should be alright with this.

By the way, this trick works with other packages that you want to run with the latest python version.