How to set JAVA_HOME in Mac OS X High Sierra with Fish Shell

This configuration is useful when you decided to change your default shell in OS X, for example in our case we have Fish shell and it will not have the JAVA_HOME set out-of-the-box.

How can we test if we have configured this environment variable? Easy, just type:

echo $JAVA_HOME

If the output is empty, then we don’t have the variable in place.

Step 1. Find and open your configuration file

If you are using Fish shell, chances are you are also using Oh My Fish which provides infrastructure to allow you to install packages to extend and modify the look and feel of your shell. Let’s open the configuration file then:

nano ~/.config/fish/conf.d/omf.fish

The “~/” is a shortcut for accessing the home directory of your user.

Step 2. Locate your Java directory where the Java Development Kit was installed

If you don’t know where the Java Development Kit (JDK) was installed, just run:

sudo find / -name javac

The output may be similar to this:

/usr/bin/javac
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_171.jdk/Contents/Home/bin/javac
/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Commands/javac
find: /private/var/db/ConfigurationProfiles/Store: Operation not permitted
find: /private/var/folders/y5/abbasdf/0/SafariFamily: Operation not permitted

Notice the second line, that is our JDK installation directory, so the directory we need to use is this one: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_171.jdk/Contents/Home/

Step 3. Add the JAVA_HOME to the Oh My Fish configuration file

Let’s open the file:

nano ~/.config/fish/conf.d/omf.fish

Add the JAVA_HOME variable at the end of ~/.config/fish/conf.d/omf.fish

export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_171.jdk/Contents/Home/"

Save the file ~/.config/fish/conf.d/omf.fish (in nano just press Control + O followed by Control + X to close the file). Finally, let’s review or configuration by typing:

echo $JAVA_HOME

This command, should now print the correct JAVA_HOME:

/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_171.jdk/Contents/Home/

Sweet, isn’t it?

See you next time.

Alex Arriaga