GDAL configuration for Django in mac GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH exception

Question

I tried to install GDAL in macos by the command for django brew install gdal and it successfully installed and I have also used pip install GDAL command and it also installed successfully.

But, When I tried to run the django server it throw a error set a path for GDAL library.

django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: Could not find the GDAL library (tried "gdal", "GDAL", "gdal3.2.0", "gdal3.1.0", "gdal3.0.0", "gdal2.4.0", "gdal2.3.0", "gdal2.2.0", "gdal2.1.0", "gdal2.0.0"). Is GDAL installed? If it is, try setting GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH in your settings.

Answer 1

I also encountered this error recently on macOS 12.0.1 Monterey (full context at the end of this answer) after installing PostGIS via brew:

brew install postgis

The solution was to manually set GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH (link) and GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH (link) in settings.py:

GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH = '/opt/homebrew/opt/gdal/lib/libgdal.dylib'
GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH = '/opt/homebrew/opt/geos/lib/libgeos_c.dylib'

There was a GEOS-related error after fixing the GDAL one, so I needed both settings.

Finding the library files

The locations of those files may differ depending on your setup, but can be found using:

find /opt -name "libgdal.dylib" -print 2>/dev/null
find /opt -name "libgeos_c.dylib" -print 2>/dev/null

Each search may return multiple results. It's usually a list of symbolic links (that ultimately point to the same file), so pick the file path which doesn't have a package version in it (since that may change with a brew update).

Original context

I recently migrated from an Intel Mac (macOS 11.6 Big Sur/Homebrew 3.2.15) to an Apple Silicon Mac (macOS 12.0.1 Monterey/Homebrew 3.3.4). I didn't have to use the above settings in my previous setup despite installing PostGIS in exactly the same way. Everything else stayed the same (Python 3.9 / Django 3.2.9 / PostGIS 3.1.4 etc.).