14

I want to add a path to the PATH environment variable?

I have tried with export PATH=/mypath:$PATH and it works. But the next time I start the Terminal, my new path is not int the PATH environment variable any more.

How can I add a path to the PATHenvironment variable? and it should be there also the next time I start the Terminal.

I have problems with this now again, the trick that worked before doesn't seem to work anymore.

I have tried with:

echo 'export GRADLE_HOME=/Users/jonas/gradle-1.2/' >> ~/.profile
echo 'export PATH=GRADLE_HOME/bin:$PATH' >> ~/.profile

to add two environment variables. Then my ~/.profile-file has this content:

export GRADLE_HOME=/Users/jonas/gradle-1.2/
export PATH=GRADLE_HOME/bin:$PATH

But when I start a new Terminal window and type gradle (the command I added to PATH), I get a message that the command doesn't exists. If I run the command from /Users/jonas/gradle-1.2/bin it works fine!

jherran
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Jonas
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5 Answers5

13

OSX reads the following files in order when a terminal opens :

/etc/profile
~/.bash_profile
~/.bash_login   
~/.profile

So place your path addition into one of these. I normally put additions into ~/.bash_profile

jherran
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robzolkos
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6

echo 'export PATH=/my/path:$PATH' >> ~/.bash_profile should do the trick!

If you used echo 'export PATH=/my/path:$PATH' > ~/.bash_profile, or any such variation, you would be overwriting the contents of your profile!

nohillside
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Yasyf
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  • Note: If it isn't obvious, .bash_profileis a text file and you can also directly open and edit it to add any path either with the command nano ~/.bash_profile in the Terminal or using TextEdit ( https://superuser.com/a/912645 ). – sfxedit Sep 08 '21 at 09:33
5

Updated at 2021.0908

I'm using this:

~/.zsh/
├── .fzf.zsh
├── .zcompdump
├── .zprofile              # This will be read before .zshrc.
├── .zsh_functions         # This is for my custom scripts.
├── .zsh_history
├── .zshenv                # (Important) Create a symlink of this to your ~/.
└── .zshrc                 # Put everything in this file is fine. (cont.)
                           # (cont.) this is the ".bashrc" in your head.

Some points:

  • My .zprofile is empty. I prefer to put all stuff inside .zshrc because it doesn't contain too many lines.
  • The content of .zshenv SHOULD contains this line so that we can organize the .zsh family into the ~/.zsh folder, AND don't forget to symlink it into your ~ folder where your OS can read:
ZDOTDIR=/.zsh

DONE. You can ignore my old answer follows.

Old answer: (Not correct. Put everything inside .zshrc is just fine.)

Old question but, for MacOS X Catalina users:

Create/edit ~/.zshenv:

# comment for yourself
PATH="$PATH:to/your/path"

Notice that modify PATH in ~/.zprofile or ~/.zshrc is not correct, it should be ~/.zshenv.

If you need to prepend something to PATH, further create/edit ~/.zprofile:

# apply the prepend to PATH
[[ -r ~/.zshenv ]] && source ~/.zshenv
# remove duplicate in PATH
typeset -U PATH

Reference: http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Intro/intro_3.html

Raining
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  • 1
    What do you mean with "If you need to prepend to the PATH" and why can't this be done in .zshenv as well? – nohillside Apr 17 '20 at 06:49
  • In short it's a matter of loading order. path_helper will be executed after ~/.zshenv but before ~/.zproflie. And from my study today I would recommend using symlink instead of modify PATH, which is much simpler. – Raining Apr 17 '20 at 08:37
3

In addition to the places mentioned by  @RobZolkos, the login shell also looks in /etc/paths and the files inside /etc/paths.d/. One path entry per line in these files.

See /etc/profile and the manual page for path_helper.

Harald Hanche-Olsen
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  • Ok, thanks! but the biggest problem was how to add the path. But I found echo 'export PATH=/mypath:$PATH' >> ~/.profile – Jonas Apr 22 '11 at 10:52
  • @Jonas: I realized that your problem was solved. My answer was intended for the benefit of future readers, so they can see all the options available to them. – Harald Hanche-Olsen Apr 22 '11 at 10:56
0

Insert in .bashrc these lines of code:

function pathadd {              # Add new element to PATH
  if ! echo $PATH | egrep -q "(:|^)$1(:|$)"
  then if [ "$2" = "after" ]
       then PATH="$PATH:$1"
       else PATH="$1:$PATH"
       fi
  fi
}

then type a command like: pathadd /opt/local/bin or pathadd /opt/local/bin after.

nohillside
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Maurizio Loreti
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  • 2
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  • Note the two functions in fink’s init- https://github.com/fink/base-files/blob/master/init.sh.in – fd0 Apr 17 '20 at 11:06