Download Positron

Download Positron for Windows, macOS, or Linux. Free data science IDE supporting Python and R with automatic updates included.

Positron on desktop

Find out what you need to know before you install Positron, then download the desktop installer for your platform.

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Please review Positron’s license agreement and privacy policy. Your acceptance of this license agreement and privacy policy is required as a condition to proceeding with your download or use of the software.

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Platform	Download	Size	SHA-256
Windows 10, 11 x64 (system level install)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-Setup-x64.exe	315M	5d178d2
Windows 10, 11 x64 (user level install)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-UserSetup-x64.exe	315M	20bd4d9
MacOS 11.0+ (universal)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-universal.dmg	850M	fd20495
MacOS 11.0+ (arm64/Apple Silicon)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-arm64.dmg	598M	6300e9d
MacOS 11.0+ (x64/Intel)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-x64.dmg	601M	8985f08
Debian-based Linux x64 (Ubuntu 20+)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-x64.deb	312M	78927ea
Debian-based Linux arm64 (Ubuntu 20+)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-arm64.deb	301M	bbc26b2
Red Hat-based Linux x64 (RHEL9)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-x64.rpm	354M	d86adea
Red Hat-based Linux arm64 (RHEL9)	Positron-2026.01.0-147-arm64.rpm	343M	3fa14a1

Once you install Positron, it will automatically check for updates moving forward.

Positron Pro on Posit Workbench

Posit Workbench 2025.09.0 and later includes support for Positron Pro. To configure and use Positron Pro on Posit Workbench, please see the Posit Workbench Administration Guide and the Positron Pro user guide.

Release notes

The current release of Positron is 2026.01.0-147.

Highlights

Explore your Console history 📜

Positron has a new History Pane, similar to RStudio’s. Your Console inputs are tracked by language and grouped by time period. You can search your history, send entries to the Console or an editor, and clear individual entries (handy if you accidentally entered a secret) or the entire history. Find the History pane on the right in the secondary side bar by default, or run History: Focus on History View from the command palette.

Positron Assistant 🤖

Positron Assistant, available as a preview feature, is now more powerful and reliable:

Assistant has switched to using a native implementation of the Copilot completion engine, addressing a variety of authentication and performance issues. Copilot credentials now also work in Remote SSH sessions, and VS Code proxy settings are respected when connecting to GitHub Copilot. If you were logged in to GitHub Copilot previously, you will need to sign out and back in to use Copilot in this latest release.
Assistant’s tools, such as for editing files, installing packages, and getting directory structure, have been refined.
You can now create custom agent files for your projects. Read more at https://positron.posit.co/assistant-chat-agents.

Try experimental Dev Container support 🐳

Positron now has early, experimental support for Dev Containers. You can build or rebuild a container and open your workspace inside it. To try it out, enable the dev.containers.enable setting. Note that this early version has some limitations; only single-container configurations are supported (no Docker Compose), and musl-based Linux distributions like Alpine are not yet supported.

Let us know how it goes with our new Dev Container support!

Changelog

New features

[#5484] Added a History pane to Positron, similar to RStudio’s.
[#4691] Added experimental support for Dev Containers.
[#9948] Console: following up on the shared notebook/console kernel feature, notebook console action buttons are now hidden by default. Enable Console: Show Notebook Console Actions to display “Show Notebook Console” option in notebook toolbars.
[#4478] Console: now use a separate console history during debugging sessions.
[#7460] Console: log output channels have been consolidated. There is now a single “Kernel”, “Supervisor”, and “Language Server” channel per language.
[#10330] Auxiliary windows in compact mode (for example, Plots: Open Plot in New Window and Chat: New Chat Window) now hide the editor action bar by default. Switch away from compact mode to access the editor action bar.
[#10432] Connections Pane: added Python support for AWS Redshift.
[#11082] Connections Pane: extensions can now register multiple database drivers with the same name and get them rendered as options when creating a new database connection.
[#10835] Connections Pane: new spinning icon is shown when the connections pane is loading a table preview.
[#7613] Plots: “Open in new window” for plots now uses compact mode in the new window.
[#10491] Assistant: now use native implementation of Copilot completion engine, addressing a variety of authentication and performance issues.
[#8409] Assistant: now use local Copilot credentials in Remote SSH.
[#8623] Assistant: use VS Code proxy settings when connecting to GitHub Copilot.
[#10721] Assistant: combined directory structure tool with project tree tool.
[#10671] Assistant: Positron Assistant’s file editing tool will now wait for user feedback after proposing edits rather than returning immediately. This means that the agent will “see” the user’s choice of Keep vs. Undo when making changes and incorporate feedback from the user more seamlessly.
[#10889] Assistant: added support for custom agent files in .vscode/positron/agents/<FILE_NAME>.agent.md.
[#10232] Assistant: updated setting names and behavior (positron.assistant.filterModels moved to positron.assistant.models.include, positron.assistant.configuredModels moved to positron.assistant.models.custom, positron.assistant.preferredModel moved to positron.assistant.models.preference.global, positron.assistant.defaultModels moved to positron.assistant.models.preference.byProvider).
[#11003] Assistant: removed testModels setting.
[#9654] Python: now fully support Python 3.14.
[#10712] Python: now warn users if they have more than one Python language server extension installed.
[#4398, #3724] R: added experimental support for starting Conda and Pixi R sessions in Positron via conda activate. Note that not all of Positron’s R features have been tested with Conda or Pixi R.
[#3681] R: added a link to the “Run and Debug” pane with info on debugging R code.
[#3269] R: now show Profvis (R profiler) output in the editor.
[#10615] Data Explorer: a new “File options” action bar button opens a modal that allows toggling whether a CSV/TSV file has a header row (the default) or not. Other options may be added in the future.
[#507] The Variables view can now be hidden, for troubleshooting or when working with large or sensitive objects in memory.
[#10186] Improved user feedback when “Check for Updates” is manually triggered.

Bug fixes

[#2075] Console: Python syntax errors now show traceback information.
[#6553] Console: R consoles can now be restarted while the debugger is active.
[#598, #722] Console: some R syntax errors no longer cause a distracting backtrace in the console.
[#10798] Console: fixed an issue that could cause R and Python sessions to exit unexpectedly after reloading the window.
[#10593] Console: fixed typing for Positron’s console.fontLigatures setting.
[#10058] Console: copying commands in the console with spaces can now be pasted back into the console and executed.
[#8720] Assistant: disabled the installPythonPackage tool when in an R context.
[#7632] Assistant: fixed model provider config dialog error message covered by dialog button.
[#10914] Assistant: inline chat now better handles inserting text when editing a selection.
[#10364] Assistant: fixed error when chat history has a participant.
[#10980] Assistant: project tree tool now returns accurate results for multi-root workspaces.
[#11044] Assistant: fixed issue preventing tool calls for Snowflake and Bedrock when using managed credentials.
[#10686] Assistant: fixed inaccurate tooltip indicating image attachments not supported.
[#10904] Python: now deduplicate Python completions, and fixed some situations where hover popups and function signature help popups wouldn’t appear.
[#10998] Python: completions now more accurately reflect what’s in your environment.
[#11011] Python: added back our contributed defaults for the Pyright extension.
[#7741] Python: fixed proxy error when opening Plotly plots in an external browser.
[#10258] Python: adjusted web app detection to look for app creation before imports.
[#9640] Python: help calls for Python’s builtin input() function now include explanation of ipykernel.kernelbase.Kernel.raw_input involvement.
[#3136] Help: fixed styling of code elements in the Help pane.
[#5975, #10378] Workbench: fixed a bug when opening editors such as with rstudioapi::navigateToFile() or when using reprex.
[#10669] Only copy data explorer contents if the data explorer has focus.
[#8728] The menu item “New Folder from Git…” is now enabled the first time you open the menu.
[#9327] Fixed issue preventing text from being copied from Output pane.
[#4076] Fixed text overflow of drop down entries with long text content.
[#8073] Centered checkmarks in modal dialogs (e.g. the New Folder from Template flow).
[#8434] Use theme background color for code blocks in settings UI.
[#10688] Fixed how bootstrap installed extensions check Positron’s version so that the dailies get correct extensions installed.
[#9809] Fixed branding on the process that finalizes the Positron update on Windows.
[#10843] Fixed Windows installer launching Positron when run in silent mode.

Dependencies

Updated vscode-python upstream to v2025.20.0.

Older releases

Older releases are available on GitHub, and you can also find the release notes for previous versions.