Python Quick Tip: Hiding Passwords and Secret Keys in Environment Variables (Mac & Linux)

In this Python Programming Tutorial, we will be learning how to hide passwords and secret information within environment variables on Mac and Linux machines. Hard-coding secret information is a common mistake that beginners make when learning Python. Hiding this information within environment variables allows you to access your secret information within your code without anyone else being able to see these values from your source code. Let's get started...

The code from this video can be found at:

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[arctic-]

Dude, you have some of the best tutorials on Youtube, students today (and everyone else) are very lucky to have your videos as a learning source. Thank you!

[fahimalwasi]

Your way of teaching and examples are very hands-on and relatable. You have this amazing skill to make people understand with ease.

[gwanghyeongim]

Now Mac uses zsh by default after Catalina update as I recall. For zsh users, I advise to type 'nano ~/.zshrc' in prompt instead of bash._profile.

[Beyourselvestoachive]

a newbie here, been looking for the os.environ for quite some times . and really you gave the clear explanation about it. Thank You!

[senolkurt]

Your tip concerning "not leave a space between equal sign and quotes" saved my time. Thanks a lot!!!

[abhisheksaharan]

It's amazing how you make hard topics so easy to understand. I am learning so much from you. Thanks for your work and help!

[psgpyc]

I am thinking of changing my mobile phone's ringtone to Corey saying, "Hey, there! How it is going everybody." :D

[YashasLokesh]

Thanks for this! I was wondering how to easily protect my API keys when uploading python scripts to GitHub, this was great!

[FrocketGaming]

I've been searching for a solution like this for several days... this solved so many of my headaches.

[marks_mindset_minutes]

Excellent Corey! Simply explained and demonstrated. Thanks!

[guilhermehx]

Very good, man. You re doing such a great work!!!

[jx]

Friends who are using Ubuntu 16.04, the file you're looking for is probably .profile in your home directory (if browsing there in the file system remember to hit ctrl+h to see hidden files) and do the exports just like Corey says in there. Personally I needed to restart my whole VM for it to take effect. Restarting my terminals and Pycham wasn't enough. Good luck! It's working great now for me, thanks Corey!

[mathiaz]

I would suggest using keyring.

Btw. I too really enjoy your videos, very informative and to the point. Keep up the good work!

[rakeshpk]

In my experience, environment variables also serve one important purpose other than maintaining secrecy. By using of environment variables instead of hard coded values I could easily roll out my project without worrying about the API keys and other settings used in the development version updated before uploading source code to the deployment server.🔥

[alex]

Thank you so much. I searched about half an hour for answer until I finally found your tutorial.

[HarmenHoek]

Note that the standard shell for MacOS is zsh nowadays. Name the file .zshenv in that case OR run source ~/.bash_profile each time before running the server.
Similarly you can run source in your editor terminal to run create the environmental variables instead of restarting it.

[elgary]

LOVE IT, nobody has explained better! thanks a lot!

[dclassic]

This was very helpful! Thank you very much!

[jessketches.]

thank you for making sense of this for me - was struggling to understand it in text form only! :)

[relax-bqij]

Thanks.. a long sought knowledge! thumbs-up!!