Fatiando a Terra
Published January 30, 2026 | Version v1.9.0
Software Open

Pooch v1.9.0: A friend to fetch your data files

Authors/Creators

  • 1. The US National Center for Atmospheric Research, USA
  • 2. Monash University, Australia
  • 3. Environmental Physics, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 4. Ramona Optics Inc.
  • 5. Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
  • 6. EMBL-EBI, UK
  • 7. Unaffiliated
  • 8. Scientific Software Center, Heidelberg University, Germany
  • 9. National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Univeristy of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • 10. Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Germany
  • 11. University of Washington, USA
  • 12. New York University, USA
  • 13. Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, France
  • 14. Polar Science Center, University of Washington Applied Physics Lab, USA
  • 15. EDMO icon University of British Columbia, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences
  • 16. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
  • 17. Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil

Description

Just want to download a file without messing with requests and urllib? Trying to add sample datasets to your Python package? Pooch is here to help!

Pooch is a Python library that can manage data by downloading files from a server (only when needed) and storing them locally in a data cache (a folder on your computer).

  • Pure Python and minimal dependencies.
  • Download files over HTTP, FTP, and from data repositories like Zenodo and figshare.
  • Built-in post-processors to unzip/decompress the data after download.
  • Designed to be extended: create custom downloaders and post-processors.

Are you a scientist or researcher? Pooch can help you too!

  • Host your data on a repository and download using the DOI.
  • Automatically download data using code instead of telling colleagues to do it themselves.
  • Make sure everyone running the code has the same version of the data files.

Pooch v0.7.1 was reviewed at the Journal of Open Source Software: https://github.com/openjournals/joss-reviews/issues/1943

Documentation: https://www.fatiando.org/pooch

Source code: https://github.com/fatiando/pooch

Part of the Fatiando a Terra project.

Note: Authors are listed in alphabetical order by last name.

Files

pooch-1.9.0.zip

Files (246.6 kB)

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Additional details

Related works

Is published in
Publication: 10.21105/joss.01943 (DOI)

Software

Repository URL
https://github.com/fatiando/pooch
Programming language
Python
Development Status
Active