Setting environment variables on OS X

Question

What is the proper way to modify environment variables like PATH in OS nbsp X   I ve looked on Google a little bit and found three different files to edit     etc paths    profile    tcshrc   I don t even have some of these files  and I m pretty sure that  tcshrc is wrong  since OS nbsp X uses bash now  Where are these variables  especially PATH  defined   I m running OS nbsp X nbsp v10 5  Leopard

User · Answer

For Bash  try adding your environment variables to the file  etc profile to make them available for all users  No need to reboot  just start a new Terminal session

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Solution for both command line and GUI applications from a single source  works with Mac  OS  X v10 10  Yosemite  and Mac  OS  X v10 11  El Capitan   Let s assume you have environment variable definitions in your    bash profile like in the following snippet  export JAVA HOME  quot    usr libexec java home -v 1 8  quot  export GOPATH  quot  HOME go quot  export PATH  quot  PATH  usr local opt go libexec bin  GOPATH bin quot  export PATH  quot  usr local opt coreutils libexec gnubin  PATH quot  export MANPATH  quot  usr local opt coreutils libexec gnuman  MANPATH quot   We need a Launch Agent which will run on each login and anytime on demand which is going to load these variables to the user session  We ll also need a shell script to parse these definitions and build necessary commands to be executed by the agent  Create a file with plist suffix  e g  named osx-env-sync plist  in   Library LaunchAgents  directory with the following contents   lt  xml version  quot 1 0 quot  encoding  quot UTF-8 quot   gt   lt  DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC  quot -  Apple  DTD PLIST 1 0  EN quot   quot http   www apple com DTDs PropertyList-1 0 dtd quot  gt   lt plist version  quot 1 0 quot  gt   lt dict gt     lt key gt Label lt  key gt     lt string gt osx-env-sync lt  string gt     lt key gt ProgramArguments lt  key gt     lt array gt       lt string gt bash lt  string gt       lt string gt -l lt  string gt       lt string gt -c lt  string gt       lt string gt         HOME  osx-env-sync sh      lt  string gt     lt  array gt     lt key gt RunAtLoad lt  key gt     lt true  gt   lt  dict gt   lt  plist gt   -l parameter is critical here  it s necessary for executing the shell script with a login shell so that    bash profile is sourced in the first place before this script is executed  Now  the shell script  Create it at    osx-env-sync sh with the following contents  grep export  HOME  bash profile   while IFS      read ignoreexport envvar ignorevalue  do   launchctl setenv  quot   envvar  quot   quot    envvar  quot  done  Make sure the shell script is executable  chmod  x    osx-env-sync sh  Now  load the launch agent for current session  launchctl load   Library LaunchAgents osx-env-sync plist   Re Launch a GUI application and verify that it can read the environment variables  The setup is persistent  It will survive restarts and relogins  After the initial setup  that you just did   if you want to reflect any changes in your    bash profile to your whole environment again  rerunning the launchctl load     command won t perform what you want  instead you ll get a warning like the following   lt  HOME gt  Library LaunchAgents osx-env-sync plist  Operation already in progress In order to reload your environment variables without going through the logout login process do the following  launchctl unload   Library LaunchAgents osx-env-sync plist launchctl load   Library LaunchAgents osx-env-sync plist  Finally make sure that you relaunch your already running applications  including Terminal app  to make them aware of the changes  I ve also pushed the code and explanations here to a GitHub project  osx-env-sync  I hope this is going to be the ultimate solution  at least for the latest versions of OS  X  Yosemite  amp  El Capitan

User · Answer

Bruno is right on track  I ve done extensive research and if you want to set variables that are available in all GUI applications  your only option is  etc launchd conf   Please note that environment plist does not work for applications launched via Spotlight  This is documented by Steve Sexton here    Open a terminal prompt Type sudo vi  etc launchd conf  note  this file might not yet exist  Put contents like the following into the file    Set environment variables here so they are available globally to all apps    and Terminal   including those launched via Spotlight      After editing this file run the following command from the terminal to update   environment variables globally without needing to reboot    NOTE  You will still need to restart the relevant application  including   Terminal  to pick up the changes    grep -E   setenv   etc launchd conf   xargs -t -L 1 launchctl     See http   www digitaledgesw com node 31   and http   stackoverflow com questions 135688 setting-environment-variables-in-os-x      Note that you must hardcode the paths below  don t use environment variables    You also need to surround multiple values in quotes  see MAVEN OPTS example below    setenv JAVA VERSION 1 6 setenv JAVA HOME  System Library Frameworks JavaVM framework Versions 1 6 Home setenv GROOVY HOME  Applications Dev groovy setenv GRAILS HOME  Applications Dev grails setenv NEXUS HOME  Applications Dev nexus nexus-webapp setenv JRUBY HOME  Applications Dev jruby  setenv ANT HOME  Applications Dev apache-ant setenv ANT OPTS -Xmx512M  setenv MAVEN OPTS  -Xmx1024M -XX MaxPermSize 512m  setenv M2 HOME  Applications Dev apache-maven  setenv JMETER HOME  Applications Dev jakarta-jmeter  Save your changes in vi and reboot your Mac  Or use the grep xargs command which is shown in the code comment above  Prove that your variables are working by opening a Terminal window and typing export and you should see your new variables   These will also be available in IntelliJ IDEA and other GUI applications you launch via Spotlight

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For a single user modification  use    profile of the ones you listed  The following link explains when the different files are read by Bash   http   telin ugent be  slippens drupal bashrc and others  If you want to set the environment variable for gui applications you need the    MacOSX environment plist file

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Sometimes all of the previous answers simply don t work  If you want to have access to a system variable  like M2 HOME  in Eclipse or in IntelliJ IDEA the only thing that works for me in this case is   First  step 1  edit  etc launchd conf to contain a line like this   setenv VAR value  and then  step 2  reboot   Simply modifying  bash profile won t work because in OS nbsp X the applications are not started as in other Unix es  they don t inherit the parent s shell variables  All the other modifications won t work for a reason that is unknown to me  Maybe someone else can clarify about this

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Any of the Bash startup files --    bashrc     bash profile     profile  There s also some sort of weird file named    MacOSX environment plist for environment variables in GUI applications

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Another  free  opensource  Mac nbsp OS nbsp X nbsp v10 8  Mountain Lion  Preference pane environment plist solution is EnvPane   EnvPane s source code available on GitHub  EnvPane looks like it has comparable features to RCEnvironment  however  it seems it can update its stored variables instantly  i e  without the need for a restart or login  which is welcome   As stated by the developer      EnvPane is a preference pane for Mac OS X 10 8  Mountain Lion  that   lets you set environment variables for all programs in both graphical   and terminal sessions  Not only does it restore support for      MacOSX environment plist in Mountain Lion  it also publishes your   changes to the environment immediately  without the need to log out   and back in     lt SNIP gt    EnvPane includes  and automatically installs  a   launchd agent that runs 1  early after login and 2  whenever the      MacOSX environment plist changes  The agent reads      MacOSX environment plist and exports the environment variables from   that file to the current user s launchd instance via the same API that   is used by launchctl setenv and launchctl unsetenv    Disclaimer  I am in no way related to the developer or his her project   P S  I like the name  sounds like  Ends Pain

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Here is a very simple way to do what you want  In my case  it was getting Gradle to work  for Android Studio     Open up Terminal  Run the following command   sudo nano  etc paths or sudo vim  etc paths Enter your password  when prompted  Go to the bottom of the file  and enter the path you wish to add  Hit Control   X to quit  Enter  Y  to save the modified buffer  Open a new terminal window then type   echo  PATH   You should see the new path appended to the end of the PATH   I got these details from this post   Add to the PATH on Mac OS X 10 8 Mountain Lion and up

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There are essentially two problems to solve when dealing with environment variables in OS X   The first is when invoking programs from Spotlight  the magnifying glass icon on the right side of the Mac menu status bar  and the second when invoking programs from the Dock  Invoking programs from a Terminal application utility is trivial because it reads the environment from the standard shell locations     profile     bash profile     bashrc  etc    When invoking programs from the Dock  use    MacOSX environment plist where the  lt dict gt  element contains a sequence of  lt key gt KEY lt  key gt  lt string gt theValue lt  string gt  elements   When invoking programs from Spotlight  ensure that launchd has been setup with all the key value settings you require   To solve both problems simultaneously  I use a login item  set via the System Preferences tool  on my User account   The login item is a bash script that invokes an Emacs lisp function although one can of course use their favorite scripting tool to accomplish the same thing   This approach has the added benefit that it works at any time and does not require a reboot  i e  one can edit    profile  run the login item in some shell and have the changes visible for newly invoked programs  from either the Dock or Spotlight   Details   Login item    bin macosx-startup     bin bash bash -l -c   Applications Emacs app Contents MacOS Emacs --batch -l   lib emacs elisp macosx environment-support el -f generate-environment    Emacs lisp function    lib emacs elisp macosx envionment-support el      Provide support for the environment on Mac OS X   defun generate-environment       Dump the current environment into the    MacOSX environment plist file        The system environment is found in the global variable        initial-environment  as a list of  KEY VALUE  pairs     let   list initial-environment          pair start command key value         clear out the current environment settings      find-file     MacOSX environment plist        goto-char  point-min        setq start  search-forward   lt dict gt  n         search-forward   lt  dict gt         beginning-of-line       delete-region start  point        while list        setq pair  split-string  car list                   list  cdr list          setq key  nth 0 pair              value  nth 1 pair          insert     lt key gt   key   lt  key gt  n          insert     lt string gt   value   lt  string gt  n             Enable this variable in launchd        setq command  format  launchctl setenv  s    s    key value          shell-command command          Save the buffer       save-buffer      NOTE  This solution is an amalgam of those coming before I added mine  particularly that offered by Matt Curtis  but I have deliberately tried to keep my    bash profile content platform independent and put the setting of the launchd environment  a Mac only facility  into a separate script

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Much like the answer Matt Curtis gave  I set environment variables via launchctl  but I wrap it in a function called export  so that whenever I export a variable like normal in my  bash profile  it is also set by launchctl  Here is what I do    My  bash profile consists solely of one line   This is just personal preference    source  bashrc  My  bashrc has this   function export         builtin export          if          -eq 1  amp  amp                       then         launchctl setenv                          elif                           then         launchctl setenv                    fi    export -f export  The above will overload the Bash builtin  export  and will export everything normally  you ll notice I export  export  with it    then properly set them for OS X app environments via launchctl  whether you use any of the following   export LC CTYPE en US UTF-8      launchctl getenv LC CTYPE   en US UTF-8 PATH   usr local bin   PATH   PATH   usr local opt coreutils libexec gnubin   PATH   export PATH      launchctl getenv PATH    usr local opt coreutils libexec gnubin  usr local bin  usr bin  bin  usr sbin  sbin  usr local bin export CXX FLAGS  -mmacosx-version-min 10 9       launchctl getenv CXX FLAGS   -mmacosx-version-min 10 9  This way I don t have to send every variable to launchctl every time  and I can just have my  bash profile    bashrc set up the way I want  Open a terminal window  check out your environment variables you re interested in with launchctl getenv myVar  change something in your  bash profile  bashrc  close the terminal window and re-open it  check the variable again with launchctl  and voil    it s changed  Again  like the other solutions for the post-Mountain Lion world  for any new environment variables to be available for apps  you need to launch or re-launch them after the change

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Up to and including OS nbsp X nbsp v10 7  Lion  you can set them in      MacOSX environment plist   See    https   developer apple com legacy library qa qa1067  index html https   developer apple com library content documentation MacOSX Conceptual BPRuntimeConfig Articles EnvironmentVars html   For PATH in the Terminal  you should be able to set in  bash profile or  profile  you ll probably have to create it though   For OS nbsp X nbsp v10 8  Mountain Lion  and beyond you need to use launchd and launchctl

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While the answers here aren t  wrong   I ll add another  never make environment variable changes in OS X that affect  all processes   or even  outside the shell  for all processes run interactively by a given user   In my experience  global changes to environment variables like PATH for all processes are even more likely to break things on OS X than on Windows  Reason being  lots of OS X applications and other software  including  perhaps especially  components of the OS itself  rely on UNIX command-line tools under the hood  and assume the behavior of the versions of these tools provided with the system  and don t necessarily use absolute paths when doing so  similar comments apply to dynamically-loaded libraries and DYLD   environment variables   Consider  for instance  that the highest-rated answers to various Stack Overflow questions about replacing OS X-supplied versions of interpreters like Python and Ruby generally say  don t do this    OS X is really no different than other UNIX-like operating systems  e g   Linux  FreeBSD  and Solaris  in this respect  the most likely reason Apple doesn t provide an easy way to do this is because it breaks things  To the extent Windows isn t as prone to these problems  it s due to two things   1  Windows software  doesn t tend to rely on command-line tools to the extent that UNIX software does  and  2  Microsoft has had such an extensive history of both  DLL hell  and security problems caused by changes that affect all processes that they ve changed the behavior of dynamic loading in newer Windows versions to limit the impact of  global  configuration options like PATH    Lame  or not  you ll have a far more stable system if you restrict such changes to smaller scopes

User · Answer

It s quite simple  Edit file  profile  vi  nano  Sublime Text or other text editor  file  You can found it at the    directory  user directory  and set like this   export MY VAR  your value here    Example with Java home   export JAVA HOME  Library Java JavaVirtualMachines current   Save it and return to the terminal   You can reload it with   source  profile   Or close and open your terminal window

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One thing to note in addition to the approaches suggested is that  in OS nbsp X nbsp 10 5  Leopard  at least  the variables set in launchd conf will be merged with the settings made in  profile  I suppose this is likely to be valid for the settings in    MacOSX environment plist too  but I haven t verified

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Well  I m unsure about the  etc paths and    MacOSX environment plist files  Those are new   But with Bash  you should know that  bashrc is executed with every new shell invocation and  bash profile is only executed once at startup   I don t know how often this is with Mac nbsp OS nbsp X  I think the distinction has broken down with the window system launching everything   Personally  I eliminate the confusion by creating a  bashrc file with everything I need and then do   ln -s  bashrc  bash profile

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Update  2017-08-04   As of  at least  macOS 10 12 6  Sierra  this method seems to have stopped working for Apache httpd  for both the system and the user option of launchctl config   Other programs do not seem to be affected  It is conceivable that this is a bug in httpd   Original answer  This concerns OS X 10 10   10 11  specifically due to rootless mode where  usr bin is no longer writeable    I ve read in multiple places that using launchctl setenv PATH  lt new path gt  to set the PATH variable does not work due to a bug in OS X  which seems true from personal experience   I found that there s another way the PATH can be set for applications not launched from the shell   sudo launchctl config user path  lt new path gt    This option is documented in the launchctl man page      config system   user parameter value           Sets persistent configuration information for launchd 8  domains  Only the system domain and user domains may be configured  The location of the persistent storage is an                   implementation detail  and changes to that storage should only be made through this subcommand  A reboot is required for changes made through this subcommand to take effect                          path                 Sets the PATH environment variable for all services within the target domain to the string value   The string value should conform to the format outlined for the                              PATH environment variable in environ 7    Note that if a service specifies its own PATH  the service-specific environment variable will take precedence               NOTE  This facility cannot be used to set general environment variables for all services within the domain  It is intentionally scoped to the PATH environment vari-                              able and nothing else for security reasons            I have confirmed this to work with a GUI application started from Finder  which uses getenv to get PATH   Note that you only have to do this once and the change will be persistent through reboots

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Do   vim    bash profile   The file may not exist  if not  you can just create it   Type in this and save the file   export PATH  PATH YOUR PATH HERE  Run  source    bash profile

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Just did this really easy and quick  First create a    bash profile from terminal   touch  bash profile   then  open -a TextEdit app  bash profile   add  export TOMCAT HOME  Library Tomcat Home   save documement and you are done

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It s simple   Edit    profile and put your variables as follow       vim    profile   In file put      MY ENV VAR value    Save    wq   Restart the terminal  Quit and open it again  Make sure that s all be fine         echo  MY ENV VAR        value

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Don t expect    launchd conf to work The man page for launchctl says that it never worked   DEPRECATED AND REMOVED FUNCTIONALITY launchctl no longer has an interactive mode  nor does it accept commands from stdin  The  etc launchd conf file is no longer consulted for subcommands to run during early boot time  this functionality was removed for security considerations  While it was documented that  HOME  launchd conf would be consulted prior to setting up a user s session  this functionality was never implemented   How to set the environment for new processes started by Spotlight  without needing to reboot  You can set the environment used by launchd  and  by extension  anything started from Spotlight  with launchctl setenv  For example to set the path  launchctl setenv PATH  opt local bin  opt local sbin  usr bin  bin  usr sbin  sbin  Or if you want to set up your path in  bashrc or similar  then have it mirrored in launchd  PATH  opt local bin  opt local sbin  usr bin  bin  usr sbin  sbin launchctl setenv PATH  PATH  There s no need to reboot though you will need to restart an app if you want it to pick up the changed environment  This includes any shells already running under Terminal app  although if you re there you can set the environment more directly  e g  with export PATH  opt local bin  opt local sbin  PATH for bash or zsh  How to keeping changes after a reboot New method  since 10 10 Yosemite  Use launchctl config user path  bin  usr bin  mystuff  See man launchctl for more information  Previous method The launchctl man page quote at the top of this answer says the feature described here  reading  etc launchd conf at boot  was removed for security reasons  so ymmv  To keep changes after a reboot you can set the environment variables from  etc launchd conf  like so  setenv PATH  opt local bin  opt local sbin  usr bin  bin  usr sbin  sbin  launchd conf is executed automatically when you reboot  If you want these changes to take effect now  you should use this command to reprocess launchd conf  thanks  mklement for the tip   egrep -v    s     etc launchd conf   launchctl  You can find out more about launchctl and how it loads launchd conf with the command man launchctl

User · Answer

The  PATH variable is also subject to path helper  which in turn makes use of the  etc paths file and files in  etc paths d    A more thorough description can be found in PATH and other environment issues in Leopard  2008-11

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Set up your PATH environment variable on Mac OS  Open the Terminal program  this is in your Applications Utilities folder by default   Run the following command  touch    bash profile  open    bash profile   This will open the file in the your default text editor   For Android SDK as example   You need to add the path to your Android SDK platform-tools and tools directory  In my example I will use   Development android-sdk-macosx  as the directory the SDK is installed in  Add the following line   export PATH   PATH   Development android-sdk-macosx platform-tools  Development android-sdk-macosx tools   Save the file and quit the text editor  Execute your  bash profile to update your PATH   source    bash profile   Now every time you open the Terminal program your PATH will include the Android SDK

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I think the OP is looking for a simple  Windows-like solution   Here you go   http   www apple com downloads macosx system disk utilities environmentvariablepreferencepane html

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All the magic on iOS only goes with using source with the file  where you export your environment variables   For example   You can create an file like this   export bim fooo export bom bar   Save this file as bimbom env  and do source   bimbom ev  Voil    you got your environment variables   Check them with   echo  bim

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etc launchd conf is not used in OS nbsp X v10 10  Yosemite   OS nbsp X v10 11  El Capitan   macOS v10 12  Sierra   or macOS v10 13  High Sierra      From the launchctl man page    etc launchd conf file is no longer consulted for subcommands to run during early boot time  this functionality was removed for security considerations    The method described in this Ask Different answer works for me  after a reboot   applications launched from the Dock or from Spotlight inherit environment variables that I set in   Library LaunchAgents my startup plist   In my case  I needed to set LANG  to en US UTF-8  for a Sublime Text plugin

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Sometimes all of the previous answers simply don t work  If you want to have access to a system variable  like M2 HOME  in Eclipse or in IntelliJ IDEA the only thing that works for me in this case is   First  step 1  edit  etc launchd conf to contain a line like this   setenv VAR value  and then  step 2  reboot   Simply modifying  bash profile won t work because in OS nbsp X the applications are not started as in other Unix es  they don t inherit the parent s shell variables  All the other modifications won t work for a reason that is unknown to me  Maybe someone else can clarify about this

User · Answer

To be concise and clear about what each file is intended for      profile is sourced every time Terminal app is launched    bashrc is where  traditionally  all the export statements for Bash environment are set  etc paths is the main file in Mac OS that contains the list of default paths for building the PATH environment variable for all users  etc paths d  contains files that hold additional search paths   Non-terminal programs don t inherit the system wide PATH and MANPATH variables that your terminal does   To set environment for all processes launched by a specific user  thus making environment variables available to Mac OS X GUI applications  those variables must be defined in your    MacOSX environment plist  Apple Technical Q amp A QA1067   Use the following command line to synchronize your environment plist with  etc paths   defaults write  HOME  MacOSX environment PATH    tr   n       lt  etc paths

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There are two type of shells at play here    Non-login   bashrc is reloaded every time you start a new copy of Bash Login  The  profile is loaded only when you either login  or explicitly tell Bash to load it and use it as a login shell    It s important to understand here that with Bash  file  bashrc is only read by a shell that s both interactive and non-login  and you will find that people often load  bashrc in  bash profile to overcome this limitation   Now that you have the basic understanding  let   s move on to how I would advice you to set it up     profile  create it non-existing  Put your PATH setup in there   bashrc  create if non-existing  Put all your aliases and custom methods in there   bash profile  create if non-existing  Put the following in there     bash file      bin bash source    profile   Get the PATH settings source    bashrc    Get Aliases and Functions

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Login Shells   etc profile   The shell first executes the commands in file  etc profile  A user working with root privileges can set up this file to establish systemwide default characteristics for users running Bash    bash profile  bash login  profile   Next the shell looks for    bash profile     bash login  and    profile     is short- hand for your home directory   in that order  executing the commands in the first of these files it finds  You can put commands in one of these files to override the defaults set in  etc profile  A shell running on a virtual terminal does not execute commands in these files    bash logout   When you log out  bash executes commands in the    bash logout file  This file often holds commands that clean up after a session  such as those that remove temporary files   Interactive Nonlogin Shells   etc bashrc   Although not called by bash directly  many    bashrc files call  etc bashrc  This setup allows a user working with root privileges to establish systemwide default characteristics for nonlogin bash shells    bashrc   An interactive nonlogin shell executes commands in the    bashrc file  Typically a startup file for a login shell  such as  bash profile  runs this file  so both login and nonlogin shells run the commands in  bashrc   Because commands in  bashrc may be executed many times  and because subshells inherit exported variables  it is a good idea to put commands that add to existing variables in the  bash profile file

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My personal practice is  bash profile  I m adding paths there and append to Path variable   GOPATH  usr local go bin  MYSQLPATH  usr local opt mysql 5 6 bin  PATH  PATH  GOPATH  MYSQLPATH   After then I can have individual Path by echo  GOPATH  echo MYSQLPATH or all by echo  PATH

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After chasing the Environment Variables preference pane and discovering that the link is broken and a search on Apple s site seems to indicate they ve forgotten about it    I started back onto the trail of the elusive launchd process   On my system  Mac OS X 10 6 8  it appears that variables defined in environment plist are being reliably exported to apps launched from Spotlight  via launchd    My trouble is that those vars are not being exported to new bash sessions in Terminal   I e  I have the opposite problem as portrayed here   NOTE   environment plist looks like JSON  not XML  as described previously  I was able to get Spotlight apps to see the vars by editing   MacOSX environment plist and I was able to force the same vars into a new Terminal session by adding the following to my  profile file   eval   launchctl export

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On Mountain Lion all the  etc paths and  etc launchd conf editing doesn t make any effect   Apple s Developer Forums say       Change the Info plist of the  app itself to contain an  LSEnvironment    dictionary with the environment variables you want          MacOSX environment plist is no longer supported     So I directly edited the application s Info plist  right click on  AppName app   in this case SourceTree  and then  Show package contents       And I added a new key dict pair called    lt key gt LSEnvironment lt  key gt   lt dict gt        lt key gt PATH lt  key gt        lt string gt  Users flori  rvm gems ruby-1 9 3-p362 bin  Users flori  rvm gems ruby-1 9 3-p362 global bin  Users flori  rvm rubies ruby-1 9 3-p326 bin  Users flori  rvm bin  usr bin  bin  usr sbin  sbin  usr local bin  lt  string gt   lt  dict gt     see  LaunchServicesKeys Documentation at Apple     Now the application  in my case Sourcetree  uses the given path and works with Git 1 9 3  -   PS  Of course you have to adjust the Path entry to your specific path needs

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