I was installing some tools on my mac today which I wanted to have in the path. Specifically I was installing the Android-SDK tools. I wanted to have the adb shell come up no matter which directory I was in. Being a Linux guy I check out /etc/profile but discovered that mac does it just a tiny bit different . Below I will show you two ways to edit your path in mac OSX. One is permanent and one only lasts until reboot.
The First Way:
The same as in Linux you can just edit the $PATH from the command line. This will last only for your session and will not survive a reboot.
- export PATH=$PATH:/new_path_entry
I was looking for a more permanent solution so I had to dig a little deeper into how mac does things.
The Second Way:
It seems mac actual has a path file. It is located in /etc/path
- Infidel:~ purehate$ sudo vi /etc/paths
The file just has each directory path on a individual line so add what ever you need. In my example I added /Users/purehate/Documents/android-sdk/tools which is where my adb tools are.
- /usr/bin
- /bin
- /usr/sbin
- /sbin
- /usr/local/bin
- /Users/purehate/Documents/android-sdk/tools
This method will be permanent and add the directory to your path each time you boot.
Thanks! This was extremely helpful!
Hello P.C.,
No problem. We are always glad to hear when one of the articles we have posted helps someone out. Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback.
Thanks.
alex