Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.10 or newer
• macOS, Linux, or Windows

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Recommended: pipx

pipx installs CLI tools in isolated environments with no dependency conflicts. This is the safest approach on macOS where the system Python is often too old or protected.

# macOS
brew install pipx

# Linux
sudo apt install pipx       # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install pipx       # Fedora

# Windows
scoop install pipx          # or: winget install pipx

# Universal fallback (any OS)
pip install --user pipx

pipx ensurepath             # add pipx to PATH (run once after install)

Then install the scanner:

pipx install global-entry-scanner

macOS note: Avoid pip3 install outside a virtual environment. Homebrew's Python will reject system-wide installs with an "externally-managed-environment" error, and the default macOS Python is 3.9 (too old). pipx handles this automatically.

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Alternative: pip inside a virtual environment

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

pip install global-entry-scanner

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Verify the install

global-entry-scanner --help

You should see the list of available commands (setup, scan, locations, mcp).

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Upgrading

# pipx
pipx upgrade global-entry-scanner

# pip
pip install --upgrade global-entry-scanner