Setting environment variables in OS X?

stackoverflow.com/questions/135688/setting-environment-variables-in-os-x

 

Bruno is right on track. I've done extensive research and if you want to set variables that are available in all GUI apps, 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.

1) Open a terminal prompt

2) Type sudo vi /etc/launchd.conf (note: this file might not yet exist)

3) 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 enviroment 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

4) Save your changes in VI and reboot your Mac. Or use the grep/xargs command show in the code comment above.

5) 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 and other GUI apps you launch via Spotlight.