After Installing

Windows

On Windows, the installer creates a desktop icon labeled IDF_PowerShell. Clicking this icon will launch PowerShell with the environment set up, allowing you to start using ESP-IDF immediately. If you’ve installed multiple versions, you will have multiple icons, one for each version.

macOS & Linux

In the installation directory you selected, there will be activation scripts for both Bash and Fish shells:

• Bash: activate_idf_{version}.sh - works in Sh, Bash, Dash and Zsh
• Fish: activate_idf_{version}.fish - for Fish shell users

If you’ve installed multiple versions of ESP-IDF, there will be separate scripts for each version.

Note The script must be sourced and not executed!

Deactivating the Environment

Each activation script has a matching deactivation script in the same directory. Sourcing it undoes the activation: it unsets IDF_PATH, IDF_TOOLS_PATH, IDF_PYTHON_ENV_PATH, IDF_COMPONENT_LOCAL_STORAGE_URL, ESP_ROM_ELF_DIR, OPENOCD_SCRIPTS, ESP_IDF_VERSION and any toolchain variables the activation set; strips the IDF entries from PATH; deactivates the Python virtual environment; and removes the idf.py, esptool, espefuse, espsecure, otatool, parttool shell functions/aliases and the idf.py tab completion.

• Bash / POSIX shell:

  . /path/to/tools/deactivate_idf_{version}.sh
  

• Fish:

  source /path/to/tools/deactivate_idf_{version}.fish
  

• PowerShell:

  . 'C:\Espressif\tools\Microsoft.{version}.PowerShell_deactivate.ps1'
  

• CMD (only when the matching _profile.bat was generated, e.g. when the offline installer was used):

  call C:\Espressif\tools\Microsoft.{version}_deactivate.bat
  

Note Like the activation script, the deactivation script must be sourced (or call-ed for CMD), not executed directly.

The deactivation script is removed automatically when you uninstall the matching IDF version with eim remove {version} (CLI) or the Version Management dashboard (GUI).