Shrink Python installation? Extract site-packages from .zip only on demand?

[pstein]

I installed recently to full Python on my Windows 10 system.

As I noticed this installation requires huge 4,85 GB (!) disk space.
Ok, I still have 90 GB free on my 1 TB SSD. But I would feel better if it would be smaller.
Python is by far my biggest space consuming software on my disk/SSD.
I am thinking about how users can reduce disk space for Python.

Since I am not a heavy Python user but uses it only occasionally and only some packages I can think of the following mechanism:

All "site-packages" remain zipped until there are really imported in a Python script.
Only if a Python script runs which executes an import this (and only this !) package is extracted from *.zip archive.

Is this somehow possible?

[buran]

I don't know what you have installed, but 4.85 Gb doesn't look normal to me

[Gribouillis]

I agree with buran. First scan the site-packages directory with a program such as filelight or windirstat to see how the space is filled.

[DeaD_EyE]

The Python-Installation is small. Packages like Qt, Tensorflow or other AI-Toolkits are very big. I guess you've installed packages via PIP.

[snippsat]

Original installation from python.org 3.13 Windows installer (64-bit) is packed 26.9 MB and unpacked on disk 160 MB(so far away from 4,85 GB )
So if have install a lot stuff via pip the size can be bigger.
As mention if install eg Tensorflow or other AI-Toolkits are very big,here is recommend to use virtual environment.
Then have all in one folder and have full control of size and can just delete that folder.
venv is build into Python and easy to use.

# Make 
G:\div_code
λ python -m venv panda_env

# cd in
G:\div_code
λ cd panda_env\

# Activate
G:\div_code\panda_env
λ G:\div_code\panda_env\Scripts\activate.bat

# Install
G:\div_code\panda_env
(panda_env) λ pip install pandas
Collecting pandas
  Downloading pandas-2.2.3-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl.metadata (19 kB)
Collecting numpy>=1.26.0 (from pandas)
  Downloading numpy-2.1.2-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl.metadata (59 kB)
     ---------------------------------------- 59.7/59.7 kB 634.7 kB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting python-dateutil>=2.8.2 (from pandas)
  Using cached python_dateutil-2.9.0.post0-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (8.4 kB)
Collecting pytz>=2020.1 (from pandas)
  Downloading pytz-2024.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (22 kB)
Collecting tzdata>=2022.7 (from pandas)
  Downloading tzdata-2024.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (1.4 kB)
Collecting six>=1.5 (from python-dateutil>=2.8.2->pandas)
  Using cached six-1.16.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl.metadata (1.8 kB)
Downloading pandas-2.2.3-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl (11.5 MB)
   ---------------------------------------- 11.5/11.5 MB 1.9 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading numpy-2.1.2-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl (12.6 MB)
   ---------------------------------------- 12.6/12.6 MB 1.8 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Using cached python_dateutil-2.9.0.post0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (229 kB)
Downloading pytz-2024.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (508 kB)
   ---------------------------------------- 508.0/508.0 kB 2.0 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Downloading tzdata-2024.2-py2.py3-none-any.whl (346 kB)
   ---------------------------------------- 346.6/346.6 kB 2.0 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Using cached six-1.16.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl (11 kB)
Installing collected packages: pytz, tzdata, six, numpy, python-dateutil, pandas
Successfully installed numpy-2.1.2 pandas-2.2.3 python-dateutil-2.9.0.post0 pytz-2024.2 six-1.16.0 tzdata-2024.2

[notice] A new release of pip is available: 24.0 -> 24.3.1
[notice] To update, run: python.exe -m pip install --upgrade pip

G:\div_code\panda_env
(panda_env) λ

So the folder is now 130 mb with Python and Pandas,and now i can just delete panda_env folder and place is free again.