Question: While I was setting an environment variable on a conda base env, I made an error in the path that was supposed to be assigned to the variable. I was trying to set the $PYSPARK_PYTHON env variable on the conda env. The set command conda env config vars set $PYSPARK_PYTHON=errorpath executed successfully even though the path has an error, and asked me to reactivate the environment. And I am unable to activate the env. When I check the env var list by doing the following: conda env config vars list -n base It shows me the incorrect path which I have set but without the variable name as follows:  = C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\some-env\\python3.7 And because of this above incorrect env variable, I am unable to activate the base env. It gives me an error as follows: Invoke-Expression : At line:6 char:1 + $Env: = "C:\\ProgramData\\Anaconda3\\envs\\some-env\\python3.7" + ~~~~~ Variable reference is not valid. ':' was not followed by a valid variable name character. Consider using ${} to delimit the name. At C:\ProgramData\Anaconda3\shell\condabin\Conda.psm1:101 char:9 + Invoke-Expression -Command $activateCommand; + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ + CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [Invoke-Expression], ParseException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidVariableReferenceWithDrive,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeExpressionCommand  I am not sure how to fix this error, but I want to just remove the environment variable from the base env. I tried unsetting it using the command conda env config vars unset $PYSPARK_PYTHON -n base. But it doesn't work. I think as the variable declaration is missing in the list, I am unable to access the variable. I did try it without the $PYSPARK_PYTHON hoping it removes all the orphaned env variables but it doesn't. Could anyone help me with this? Is there any way to reset the base environment without affecting the other envs, or reset the env variables list on the given env? Thanks

Answer: Try looking for a JSON file called state that resides in the conda-meta directory of your environment. Depending on your OS and install directory the conda-meta will be installed in different locations. The default install path for each OS is  Windows: C:\Users\<your-username>\Anaconda3\conda-meta\state Mac:/Users/<your-username>/anaconda3/conda-meta/state or ~/opt//anaconda3/conda-meta/state for GUI install Linux:/home/<your-username>/anaconda3/conda-meta/state  By editing that file you can manually change your environment variables. Further Explanation I recently messed up a conda environment too and only found this answer through inspecting the code for conda. In the code you can see that the environment variables are saved and loaded from a file  def _get_environment_state_file(self): env_vars_file = join(self.prefix_path, PREFIX_STATE_FILE) if lexists(env_vars_file): with open(env_vars_file, 'r') as f: prefix_state = json.loads(f.read(), object_pairs_hook=OrderedDict) else: prefix_state = {} return prefix_state def get_environment_env_vars(self): prefix_state = self._get_environment_state_file() env_vars_all = OrderedDict(prefix_state.get('env_vars', {})) env_vars = { k: v for k, v in env_vars_all.items() if v != CONDA_ENV_VARS_UNSET_VAR } return env_vars  If you print env_vars_file or look where PREFIX_STATE_FILE is defined you will find the file the environment variables are stored in for the environment.