I have a conda environment named old_name, how can I change its name to new_name without breaking references?

New answer:

From Conda 4.14 you will be able to use just:

conda rename -n old_name -d new_name 

Although, under the hood, conda rename still uses [1][2] undermentioned combination of conda create and conda remove.

Old answer:

You can't.

One workaround is to create clone a new environment and then remove the original one.

First, remember to deactivate your current environment. You can do this with the commands:

• deactivate on Windows or
• source deactivate on macOS/Linux.

Then:

conda create --name new_name --clone old_name
conda remove --name old_name --all # or its alias: `conda env remove --name old_name`

Notice there are several drawbacks of this method:

1. It redownloads packages (you can use --offline flag to disable it)
2. Time consumed on copying environment's files
3. Temporary double disk usage

There is an open issue requesting this feature.