# A question about \`--user\` installations of extensions

**URL:** <https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/a-question-about-user-installations-of-extensions/12978>\
**Category:** JupyterLab\
**Created:** [February 10, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/a-question-about-user-installations-of-extensions/12978 "2022-02-10T16:00:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![adpatter](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/adpatter/32/21229_2.png) [@adpatter](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/adpatter)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 4:00pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/a-question-about-user-installations-of-extensions/12978/1 "2022-02-10T16:00:16Z")

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When I do a `--user` installation of an extension e.g., `pip install --user example.whl`, the extension gets installed into `.local/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages/example`. And, the json file that activates the server part of the extension gets installed in `.local/etc/jupyter/jupyter_server_config.d/example.json`.

However, it appears that that isn’t one of the places where JupyterLab looks for the json file, as the server extension doesn’t show up when I execute `jupyter lab extension list`. When I copy `jupyter_server_config.d` into the `.jupyter` directory of my home directory, then JupyterLab is able to find the server extension.

Is it supposed to work that way?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![adpatter](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex031/user_avatar/discourse.jupyter.org/adpatter/32/21229_2.png) [@adpatter](https://discourse.jupyter.org/u/adpatter)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2022, 4:03pm UTC](https://discourse.jupyter.org/t/a-question-about-user-installations-of-extensions/12978/2 "2022-02-10T16:03:21Z")

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Here is some relevant information regarding the environment.

adpatter@server:~$ /opt/jupyterhub/bin/jupyter --version  
Selected Jupyter core packages…  
IPython : 8.0.1  
ipykernel : 6.9.0  
ipywidgets : 7.6.5  
jupyter\_client : 7.1.2  
jupyter\_core : 4.9.1  
jupyter\_server : 1.13.5  
jupyterlab : 3.1.7  
nbclient : 0.5.10  
nbconvert : 6.4.1  
nbformat : 5.1.3  
notebook : 6.4.8  
qtconsole : 5.2.1  
traitlets : 5.1.1