module 'collections' has no attribute 'Mapping' / 'Callable' (tested fix)

AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'Mapping' (or 'Callable', 'MutableMapping', 'Iterable') appears on Python 3.10 and later. Those classes now exist only in collections.abc. We checked every common alias on Python 3.13 and 3.11 and show the fix for your code and for libraries that still use the old import.

1. The abstract base classes left collections in Python 3.10

Mapping, MutableMapping, Callable, Iterable, Sequence and the other abstract base classes have lived in collections.abc since Python 3.3. The old collections.X aliases were deprecated for years and removed in Python 3.10. We checked on Python 3.13:

import collections, collections.abc, sys
print(sys.version.split()[0])
for name in ["Mapping", "MutableMapping", "Callable", "Iterable", "Sequence", "Hashable"]:
    try:
        getattr(collections, name)
        print(f"collections.{name:15} OK")
    except AttributeError as e:
        print(f"collections.{name:15} AttributeError: {e}")
print("collections.abc.Mapping:", collections.abc.Mapping)

Output:

3.13.5
collections.Mapping         AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'Mapping'
collections.MutableMapping  AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'MutableMapping'
collections.Callable        AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'Callable'
collections.Iterable        AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'Iterable'
collections.Sequence        AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'Sequence'
collections.Hashable        AttributeError: module 'collections' has no attribute 'Hashable'
collections.abc.Mapping: <class 'collections.abc.Mapping'>

Python 3.11 (run in python:3.11-alpine) gives exactly the same output, so this affects every Python from 3.10 on.

2. The fix in your own code: import from collections.abc

from collections.abc import Callable, Mapping, Iterable   # works on 3.3+
from collections import OrderedDict, defaultdict, Counter  # these never moved

print(isinstance({}, Mapping), isinstance(print, Callable), isinstance("ab", Iterable))
print(Counter("hello").most_common(1), OrderedDict(a=1), defaultdict(int)["x"])

Output:

True True True
[('l', 2)] OrderedDict({'a': 1}) 0

Only the abstract base classes moved. OrderedDict, defaultdict, Counter, deque, namedtuple and ChainMap are still in collections. For type hints, collections.abc.Callable and friends can be used directly (Callable[[int], str]) on Python 3.9+.

3. When the error is inside a library

If the traceback ends in a third-party package, the package itself still uses the old import, which fails with a different message:

try:
    from collections import Mapping        # what old libraries do
except ImportError as e:
    print("ImportError:", e)

Output:

ImportError: cannot import name 'Mapping' from 'collections' (/usr/lib/python3.13/collections/__init__.py)

Don't patch collections back by hand (collections.Mapping = collections.abc.Mapping): it hides the problem and breaks again elsewhere. Upgrade the package (pip install -U <package>), since nearly every maintained library fixed this before 3.10 was released. If it is abandoned, replace it or pin an older Python for that project. The traceback's last file path tells you which package to upgrade. More on reading these errors in our module has no attribute guide and cannot import name guide.

Written with AI assistance. Measured on 2026-10-22 on Debian with Python 3.13.5 and in python:3.11-alpine (Python 3.11.17): every common collections ABC alias, the collections.abc imports, and the from-import failure old libraries hit. Every block was run verbatim and its output pasted unedited. PlainHeaders is our extension; Python is free.