wheel

wheel is the reference implementation of the PEP 427 binary distribution format for Python. It ships a command-line tool for inspecting and manipulating .whl files.

Installation and Setup

Install it from the Python Package Index into a virtual environment:

Windows PowerShell 
PS> py -m pip install wheel
Shell 
$ python -m pip install wheel

Key Features

  • Implements the Wheel standard (PEP 427) used by installers like pip.
  • Unpacks wheels while verifying hashes and file sizes against the RECORD file with wheel unpack.
  • Repacks modified wheels and regenerates RECORD with wheel pack.
  • Converts legacy .egg archives and Windows bdist_wininst installers into wheels with wheel convert.

Usage

Unpack a wheel into a directory and verify it against RECORD:

Shell 
$ wheel unpack dist/pkg-1.2.3-py3-none-any.whl

Repack an unpacked wheel and set a new build number:

Shell 
$ wheel pack --build-number 2 pkg-1.2.3

Convert a legacy .egg or Windows installer into a wheel:

Shell 
$ wheel convert dist/pkg-1.2.3-py3.11.egg
What Are Python Wheels and Why Should You Care?

Tutorial

What Are Python Wheels and Why Should You Care?

In this tutorial, you'll learn what Python wheels are and why you should care as both a developer and end user of Python packages. You'll see how the wheel format has gained momentum over the last decade and how it has made the package installation process faster and more stable.

intermediate devops

By Leodanis Pozo Ramos • Updated Dec. 17, 2025
Python Tools Share Feedback