Updating to the Latest Version

You can update the CircuitPython version of a connected board using circfirm update.

See circfirm update --help for more information.

The board should be connected so it shows up as a CIRCUITPY USB drive (or equivalently named), where the board ID will be read from the boot_out.txt file. The CLI will then prompt you to set the board into bootloader mode, after which the selected CircuitPython version will be installed on the board.

If you wish to skip the step where the board ID is collected and simply connected the board in bootloader mode, you can do so and simply use the --board-id option to provide the board ID.

You can specify a language using the --language option - the default is US English.

If you would like to specify a timeout for how long the CLI will wait for a device in bootloader mode in secounds (e.g., for scripting), you can use the --timeout option. The default behavior is that it will wait indefinitely (-1 secounds).

If you would like to include pre-releases as potential update versions, you can use the --pre-release flag.

If you would like to limit updates to only the latest minor or patch update from the current version, you can use either the --limit-to-minor or --limit-to-patch flags respectively. Note that if both are used, the more limiting flag (--limit-to-patch) will take precedence.

Note

This command will not update the board if the detected version of CircuitPython on the connected board is greater than or equal to updated version.

# Update CircuitPython on the connected board
circfirm update

# Update the French translation of CircuitPython on the connected board
circfirm --language fr

# Update CircuitPython 8.0.0 on the connected Adafruit QT Py ESP32 Pico (in bootloader mode)
circfirm update --board-id adafruit_qtpy_esp32_pico

# Update CircuitPython on the connected board, considering pre-release versions
circfirm update --pre-release

# Update CircuitPython but only wait up to 30 seconds for the device to change from
# bootloader mode
circfirm install 8.0.0 --timeout 30