mecab-python3
Python wrapper for the MeCab morphological analyzer for Japanese
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need Japanese morphological analysis and can manage the dictionary setup. The library is mature, widely used (top 5000 on PyPI), has no known vulnerabilities, and permissive licensing. The aging maintenance status (262 days since last release) is a minor concern but not a blocker for stable use. Install friction is moderate due to dictionary requirement and platform-specific gotchas, but well-documented.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires a MeCab dictionary to be installed separately; Windows requires Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable; macOS Big Sur requires pip 20.3 or higher.
- Medium install friction: prebuilt wheels available for macOS, Linux, and Windows, but Windows requires Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and macOS Big Sur needs pip 20.3 or higher.
- No runtime dependencies, but a separate dictionary package is required to function.
License · maintenance · safety
BSD (permissive) — Distributed under permissive BSD license, with dual licensing available under GPLv2 or LGPLv2.1. No restrictions on commercial use or modification.
last release 2025-11-25 (262 days) · last repo commit 2025-11-25 · 584 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 1,078,606 downloads/mo, #4,401 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
pip install mecab-python3
import MeCab
tagger = MeCab.Tagger()
print(tagger.parse("pythonが大好きです"))- Whether the aging maintenance status (262 days since last release) affects stability or security for ongoing use.
- Which dictionary packages are compatible and actively maintained for use with this wrapper.
- Performance characteristics and scalability limits for large-scale Japanese text processing.
What it is and what it does
mecab-python3 is a Python wrapper around MeCab, a morphological analyzer for Japanese text processing. It provides tokenization (word segmentation) and grammatical tagging, breaking sentences into morphemes and annotating each with part-of-speech labels, base forms, and readings. The wrapper follows MeCab's native API closely rather than adopting Pythonic conventions, so it reads like a direct port of the underlying C++ library.
The package ships as prebuilt wheels for macOS, Linux, and Windows, eliminating the need to compile MeCab yourself. However, it requires a separate dictionary installation to actually parse text. Windows users must also install the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable. The library has no Python runtime dependencies and supports Python 3.8 through 3.14.
Use it for
- Tokenizing Japanese sentences into words and morphemes for downstream NLP tasks like sentiment analysis or named-entity recognition.
- Extracting lemmas and part-of-speech tags from Japanese text for linguistic analysis or corpus processing.
- Building a wakati-mode tokenizer for simple word segmentation without full grammatical annotation.
- Processing Japanese user input in chatbots, search engines, or text classification systems.
- Preparing Japanese text for machine learning models that require pre-tokenized input.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need Japanese morphological analysis and can manage the dictionary setup.
The library is mature, widely used (top 5000 on PyPI), has no known vulnerabilities, and permissive licensing. The aging maintenance status (262 days since last release) is a minor concern but not a blocker for stable use. Install friction is moderate due to dictionary requirement and platform-specific gotchas, but well-documented.
Install
mecab-python3 on PyPI
Before you install
Medium install friction: prebuilt wheels available for macOS, Linux, and Windows, but Windows requires Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and macOS Big Sur needs pip 20.3 or higher. No runtime dependencies, but a separate dictionary package is required to function. Last release 262 days ago; maintenance status is aging.
Requires a MeCab dictionary to be installed separately; Windows requires Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable; macOS Big Sur requires pip 20.3 or higher.
License in practice
Distributed under permissive BSD license, with dual licensing available under GPLv2 or LGPLv2.1. No restrictions on commercial use or modification.
Quickstart
pip install mecab-python3
import MeCab
tagger = MeCab.Tagger()
print(tagger.parse("pythonが大好きです"))Verify before relying
- Whether the aging maintenance status (262 days since last release) affects stability or security for ongoing use.
- Which dictionary packages are compatible and actively maintained for use with this wrapper.
- Performance characteristics and scalability limits for large-scale Japanese text processing.
Package facts
| License | BSD permissive |
| Python support | Not specified |
| Install friction | Medium. Platform-specific wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Aging 262 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 1,078,606 / month, #4,401 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 6 - MatureIntended Audience :: DevelopersIntended Audience :: Science/ResearchLicense :: OSI Approved :: BSD LicenseNatural Language :: JapaneseProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.14Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python ModulesTopic :: Text Processing :: Linguistic |
Evidence: mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp310-cp310-macosx_10_9_universal2.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp310-cp310-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp310-cp310-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp310-cp310-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp310-cp310-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp310-cp310-win_amd64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp311-cp311-macosx_10_9_universal2.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp311-cp311-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp311-cp311-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp311-cp311-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp311-cp311-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp311-cp311-win_amd64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp312-cp312-macosx_10_13_universal2.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp312-cp312-macosx_10_13_x86_64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp312-cp312-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp312-cp312-manylinux2014_aarch64.manylinux_2_17_aarch64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp312-cp312-manylinux2014_x86_64.manylinux_2_17_x86_64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp312-cp312-win_amd64.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_13_universal2.whl; mecab_python3-1.0.12-cp313-cp313-macosx_10_13_x86_64.whl
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