My setup is PyCharm, Windows 11, miniconda 4.12 I was starting a few weekend projects and wanted to use/create a virtual environment with Python 3.12 as the interpreter. My original preference was to create a conda virtual environment due to familiarity from a recent work project but don't mind using venv.
My issue (reason for this question) is that, 3.12 does not appear in the drop-down in PyCharm new environment window. I've tried
I am able to create a conda env outside of PyCharm using 'conda create --name lotto python=3.14'; then change to that env in PyCharm using Settings etc. However don't remember having to do this malarkey and instead just create/recreate env as and when someone added a package to conda_env.yml/basically do the whole thing within PyCharm/its terminal, so I'm probably missing something simple.
I'm hoping to not have to reinstall MiniConda / install Anaconda (too much space, bloated and don't need most of Anaconda functionality), in short start all over again.
My question is, what is the optimum route to get a new Python verion in the dropdown as the interpreter for a new Project/virtual environment every time a new Python version is release. Other than uninstalling everything, and reinstalling everything all over again.
This seems to be something that is hard-coded into the IDE, see for example this PR that added python 3.12. So the only way for you to get it into that list is to update your IDE (hoping that they already support the version that you want).
Alternatively, you can just create an environment with whatever python version during project setup, open Terminal in Pycharm and then do conda install python=<whatever>