Deactivate conda's base environment on startup

When opening a terminal session, conda activates the base environment by default. If you want to prevent this default behaviour, you have three ways:

• Trick #1 : Set the auto_activate_base parameter to false
• Trick #2 : Add conda deactivate in your bash configuration file
• Trick #3 :  Comment out some part of the conda initialisation code block in your bash configuration file

NOTES:

• I'm working with conda version 4.7.5 and miniconda3 (it should also work with anaconda). These tricks also worked with conda version 4.6.14
• After installing conda 4.7, conda added this block of code in my ~/.bash_profile:

  

  This is the block of code that we will modify in the following tricks

Trick #1: set auto_activate_base to false

Per conda's instructions, "if you'd prefer that conda's base environment not be activated on startup, set the auto_activate_base parameter to false". Thus, enter the following command in a terminal:

conda config --set auto_activate_base false

Trick #2: conda deactivate

• This works for conda versions >= 4.4.
• In your .bashrc (or .bash_profile), add conda deactivate right after the conda initialization code that was auto-generated, like this:

  fi
  unset __conda_setup
  # <<< conda initialize <<<
  conda deactivate

However, there is a caveat with this trick, as the StackOverflow user DryLabRebel comments, "this means that in every terminal session you activate a Conda environment, then deactivate a Conda environment, which you wouldn't notice, but it's not the same as preventing a default activation." See Trick #3 for a workaround.

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com

Trick #3: Comment out the conda initialization code

In your .bashrc (or .bash_profile), comment out the conda initialisation code block like this:

# >>> conda initialize >>>
# !! Contents within this block are managed by 'conda init' !!
# __conda_setup="$('/Users/test/miniconda3/bin/conda' 'shell.bash' 'hook' 2> /dev/null)"
# if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    # eval "$__conda_setup"
# else
if [ -f "/Users/test/miniconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh" ]; then
    . "/Users/test/miniconda3/etc/profile.d/conda.sh"
else
    export PATH="/Users/test/miniconda3/bin:$PATH"
fi
# fi
# unset __conda_setup
# <<< conda initialize <<<

As the StackOverflow user DryLabRebel comments, unlike Trick #2, in every terminal session, no conda environment is activated at all with Trick #3.

Reference: https://stackoverflow.com