I just spent 2 hours setting this variable. The other answers did not work properly for me. I'm using macOS Catalina 10.15.4.

First, find your actual Java SDK Home directory:

/usr/libexec/java_home

Manually navigate there to make sure you don't have any mistakes due to incorrect versions, etc. For me, this was:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-13.0.2.jdk/Contents/Home

Next, edit your terminal's profile. If you're using zsh, this will be:

vim ~/.zshrc

If you're not using zsh, this will be:

vim ~/.bash_profile

Inside, add the following new line anywhere in the file:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-13.0.2.jdk/Contents/Home

Restart your terminal app (or source ~/.bash_profile), and it should work properly.

I did it by putting

export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home`

(backtics) in my .bashrc. See my comment on Adrian's answer.

Additionally update PATH variable as well.

PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin

Set $JAVA_HOME environment variable on latest or older Mac OSX.

Download & Install install JDK

1. First, install JDK
2. Open terminal check java version

$ java -version

Set JAVA_HOME environment variable

1. Open .zprofile file

$ open -t .zprofile

Or create . zprofile file

$ open -t .zprofile

2. write in .zprofile

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)

Save .zprofile and close the bash file & then write in the terminal for work perfectly.

$ source .zprofile

Setup test in terminal

$ echo $JAVA_HOME  
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-13.0.1.jdk/Contents/Home

In Mac OSX 10.5 or later, Apple recommends to set the $JAVA_HOME variable to /usr/libexec/java_home, just export $JAVA_HOME in file ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile.

Open the terminal and run the below command.

$ vim .bash_profile

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)

Save and exit from Vim editor, then run the source command on .bash_profile

$ source .bash_profile

$ echo $JAVA_HOME

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.7.0.jdk/Contents/Home

It is recommended to check default terminal shell before set JAVA_HOME environment variable, via following commands:

$ echo $SHELL
/bin/bash

If your default terminal is /bin/bash (Bash), then you should use @Adrian Petrescu method.

If your default terminal is /bin/zsh (Z Shell), then you should set these environment variable in ~/.zshenv file with following contents:

export JAVA_HOME="$(/usr/libexec/java_home)"

Similarly, any other terminal type not mentioned above, you should set environment variable in its respective terminal env file.

Quick Guide for M1

1. Add java sdk into your m1 check version

   java --version

Get all java versions installed in ur mac

/usr/libexec/java_home -V

2. Execute for Java path from library

   /usr/libexec/java_home

(specify java version if you have multiple version, In my case -v17.0.5

/usr/libexec/java_home -v17.0.5

3. Mac>User>'YourUserName/Home'>.zshrc

   export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-17.0.5.jdk/Contents/Home

If you are using Zsh, then try to add this line in ~/.zshrc file & restart terminal.

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home) 

JAVA 11 via Homebrew - tested on macos Ventura 2022

.zshrc

export JAVA_HOME=/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk@11/libexec/openjdk.jdk/Contents/Home

More simply on a mac terminal with a modern OSX

$ vim ~/.zshrc

Type "a" to being editing, and then paste (ctrl + v):

$ JAVA_HOME=/usr/libexec/java_home

then hit "escape" and type exactly ":wq" in order to write to the file and quit vim mode.

Finally, when out of vim mode and back in your terminal, type

$ source ~/.zshrc

This will refresh so that your terminal is aware of the changes.

• IMPORTANT * If you don't "source" the file, you won't see the changes in this terminal session.

Check the changes by typing

$ echo $JAVA_HOME

and you should see /usr/libexec/java_home

I got it working by adding to ~/.profile. Somehow after updating to El Capitan beta, it didnt work even though JAVA_HOME was defined in .bash_profile.

If there are any El Capitan beta users, try adding to .profile

For Mac M1

Download & Install install JDK

Open terminal check java version

java -version

Now create a file

touch .zprofile

Open the file

open -t .zprofile

Add the below line

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)

First for MacOS let's check the java path go to finder:

command + space 

type

finder

on the finder press the following key to open goto:

command+shift+g

and you can go to this path below, depending upon the java version, you can go to here;

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-23.jdk/Contents/Home

In case you didn't find java on this path: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-23.jdk/Contents/Home/

then you need to install java sdk for macOS, You can find it in java official page, and install ARM64 DMG Installer, based on your macOS.

After this check again this path as with above steps:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-23.jdk/Contents/Home

then add this to your .zshrc file,

in case you don't have .zshrc file, go to terminal type

cd 

then type

ls -al

still you didn't see the .zshrc file then make one using

nano ~/.zshrc

and press i then insert the path

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk23.jdk/Contents/Home

press escape :x and hit enter to save

now include this in source by typing following from the terminal:

source ~/.zshrc

let's check if it's saved or not, type

vim ~/.zshrc

again press i and press :x to exit

This should work!!!

if this doesn't work then make

nano ~/.bash_profile 

and do the same process as we did.

my ~/.zshrc file looks like this:

export PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH"
export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-23.jdk/Contents/Home
export ANDROID_HOME=$HOME/Library/Android/sdk
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/platform-tools
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/tools/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$ANDROID_HOME/emulator

Since I'm using openjdk managed with sdkman, I added

sudo ln -sfn /path/to/my/installed/jdk/openjdk.jdk /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/openjdk.jdk

Adding this to your system lets java_home recognize your installed version of Java even when its not installed via standard packages

It has been 25 years of Java & Mac OS, both very popular systems but a basic issue like JAVA_HOME path setting still throws occassional errors. I give a step by step understanding here in addition to solution(s) so that users can troubleshoot themselves. Note that no Admin access or SUDO access is needed for this.

Let us understand the PATH variable first. Open your Terminal and type: echo $PATH
The terminal echos the value of the variable named PATH. In unix "$" is used to precede variable names (so echo PATH will just echo the letters PATH). Anyway, what is this $PATH? It is an environment variable that contains a colon-separated list of directories where your shell will look for executables that execute certain terminal commands. This helps because then you dont have to specify the full path to the runtime libraries each time you want to execute something. It makes sense to point out this path only once. This is where PATH entries help. So our goal is to set up a similiar entry for the Java run time so that the terminal shell knows where to look for Java runtime libraries to execute the Java file you want. How do we do that and where is the Java installation on the Mac?

Usually, there is lot of confusion about where the right Java installation is. MacOS thankfully can show us the installation path with a simple command. Just type /usr/libexec/java_home in the Terminal. You will get the installation path. It will be something like "/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/SOME_JDK_VERSION/ Contents/Home". Just copy that path value & do some hardcoding in terminal prompt as follows: export JAVA_HOME=the path you got above

Now you are all set. Actually half-set because the moment you close this terminal session, this value will be reset. The value is not persistent. Also secondly people often frown upon harcodings. Let us fix the second issue first.

Some solutions above suggest to do export JAVA_HOME="/usr/libexec/java_home" or export JAVA_HOME=/usr/libexec/java_home instead of hardcoding the path. The intention is good but it does not work. Instead do this: export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home). The $ tells the shell - The value of this expression is the output from executing the command in brackets (i.e. "/us/libexec/java_home"). This fixes the hardcoding issue. Before we go into the other issue (the one of persistence of the PATH value scross sessions), it is imperative to point out one more source of error. Some solutions above suggest to prepend the $HOME variable to the path: export JAVA_HOME=$H0ME/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/YOUR_JDK_VERSION_COMES_HERE/Contents/Home. $HOME is your home directory. You can just try doing echo $HOME in terminal to see what it is. So when we precede the path by $HOME, it is like giving the entire full path. For some reason, this does not work in the OS version I have. Perhapes the OS by default looks under your Home directory & now this smart addition of the extra $HOME causes it to thrown an error. So please avoid this.

Now let us address the persistence issue. In latest Macs, when you open Terminal, the Z-shell zsh opens up. It is the Unix shell that latest MacOS uses & is the default shell program. .zshrc is the configuration file for zsh whenever you open a new terminal window. We can store some configuration stuff there. In fact that is where we will define this JAVA_HOME guy. (Note that we could also store this in the .zprofile file but we will stick to .zshrc). This file's full path is ~/.zshrc. The symbol ~ means the home directory of the logged in user. So you could open the .zshrc file by searching for it in the hard drive of your Mac in your home directory (make sure to enable hidden files to be displayed). Open and manually edit to add an entry for JAVA_HOME. Alternatively, in terminal, we can just do open ~/.zshrc. This opens it up. Manually add the entry:
export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home). Make sure there are no blank spaces before or after the "=" sign & also press carriage return (Enter) after the last line. Save. RESTART Terminal (we know why right?). Once you start Terminal, the configuration file runs and sets up everything automatically. Now your Java progrm runs like a charm.

Alternatively, you can hardcode the path in the file by adding: export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/YOUR_JDK_VERSION_COMES_HERE/Contents/Home. I just gave an indicative path. You need to replace the entire path with the path you got when you typed /usr/libexec/java_home in the Terminal. Don't try prepending with $HOME or other funny business. It is good that you are trying to help by being thorough and providing the complete path but for some reason the (latest) Mac OS (as of Sep 2025) did not appreciate this good intention.

Other issues:

(1) There is no JDK. well, you got to install that first.

(2) There is no .zshrc file. Well, go ahead & create one & add the above line. use the command touch ~/.zshrc to create the file

(3) Multiple versions of Java exist. Use /usr/libexec/java_home -V and select & harcode the path you want. Don't worry about the frowners. Get your system up & running. You can later re-visit this setting when you are more comfortable.

(4) Not the latest Mac OS? Then maybe zsh is not the default editor? Maybe it is bash? Well, no issue cause that one too has a configuration file. Let us look at an interesting way to update that file directly. echo export "JAVA_HOME=\$(/usr/libexec/java_home)" >> ~/.bash_profile. Hey, what is this cool trick? This hack can apply to zsh also. For e.g.:
echo export "JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)" >> ~/.zshrc
The >> redirects output of the command preceeding it to the file .zshrc located at ~. It simply appends that output to the end of the file. So this command when executed in Terminal does what we want i.e. set the value of JAVA_HOME in the .zshrc file so that Terminal is able to automatically find the Java runtime libraries. This too works like a charm except that it hardcodes the path directly into the file (which is ok).

Bonus: Now that you have set up the path to Java runtime libraries, you can execute Java files in Terminal. This setting may or may not be read by your IDE. For e.g., I was trying to set up Java in VSCode. Since VSCode is a general IDE you need an "extension" for Java. Microsoft magnanimously has put Oracle's Java extension at the top of the extension search results. So I installed that one by default. It needed me to make an additional setting for JDK path as part of a 1-time configuration set up. There is one more "extension" for Java by Microsoft itself. This one doesent need any config setup and works right off the shelf. Happy coding

In the latest Mac, you have to add the Set $JAVA_HOME environment variable in .zprofile. Here, we simple way to open it. Press ⌘ + Shift + . from keyboard. Just open it and add the $JAVA_HOME environment variable as explained here:

I'm able to solve this issue by setting JAVA_HOME in .bash_profile file

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/opt/openjdk@17

Note: I installed openjdk version 17 using 'brew'. I got this location from brew console. I'm using 'bash' instead of 'zsh' in my mac.

1. i want to update JAVA_HOME variable ,so it is picked by maven in mac
2. i have used brew to install openjdk11 on my mac
3. i have a /.zshrc file in my mac

so i used below to set the JAVA_HOME to my openjdk11 -

1. vim ~/.zshrc
2. add below lines export=/opt/homebrew/opt/openjdk@11

Adrian Petrescu's answer is correct.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/22842806/10090030
Additionally, you can verify your changes by running the following command in the terminal:

print $JAVA_HOME

If the changes were applied successfully, you'll see:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-xx.jdk/Contents/Home

If the configuration is incorrect, nothing will be displayed.

I resolved it on macOS Monterey by using the option provided by Google

Under Gradle JDK, choose the Embedded JDK option.

https://developer.android.com/studio/intro/studio-config#:~:text=A%20copy%20of%20the%20latest,use%20for%20your%20Android%20projects.

• Open Terminal.
• Confirm you have JDK by typing “which java”. ...
• Check you have the needed version of Java, by typing “java -version”.
• Set JAVA_HOME using this command in Terminal: export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home.
• echo $JAVA_HOME on Terminal to confirm the path.

I had multiple versions of JDK installed, so what worked for me is that I manually configured my SpringToolSuite4 to use Java 11

If you already have JDKs installed, to find those SDK paths, you can use below command -

/usr/libexec/java_home -V

It will give output like,

Just copy the path, and add it in the .zshrc file,

export JAVA_HOME=$HOME/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/adoptopenjdk-11.jdk/Contents/Home

save the file and run,

source ~/.zshrc

JAVA_Home will be set.

If you don't have JDK installed then you can use sdkman for it

# install sdkman
curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash

# Show the list of jdks available
sdk list java 

# Install the specific JDK
 sdk install java 17.0.14-jbr

SDKMAN!

Install the SDKMAN! utility on your Mac.

Installing Java sets JAVA_HOME

Get a list of available JDKs published by various vendors. (Be sure to research their legal license terms.)

sdk list java

1. From that list, copy the name of the JDK product of your choice.
2. Call sdk install java command, passing the name of your JDK product.

sdk install java your-choice-of-jdk-goes-here

The installer asks if you want to make that your default JDK. If you agree, SDKMAN! sets the JAVA_HOME environment variable.

Changing JAVA_HOME

To later specify a particular JDK as the default, run the sdk default java command. SDKMAN! sets the JAVA_HOME environment variable.

sdk default java your-choice-of-jdk-goes-here

Setting JAVA_HOME temporarily

To set the default JDK within the current terminal shell session only, rather than across all future shell sessions, call the sdk use java command.

sdk use java your-choice-of-jdk-goes-here

For mac users https://stackoverflow.com/a/77953587/4792285

Install using homebrew https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/openjdk

brew install openjdk@21 

OR

brew install openjdk@11

Then set up the .profile on your mac (/Users/your_username/.profile). If this file is hidden you may need to press Command + Shift + . (the period key) to make it visible.

add JAVA_HOME and update the PATH variable

export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)
export PATH="$JAVA_HOME:$PATH"

open a new terminal and type

echo $JAVA_HOME
echo $PATH

to verify your change.

https://stackoverflow.com/a/77953587/4792285