How to Set $JAVA_HOME environment variable on Mac OS X

In this tutorial, we show you how to set $JAVA_HOME environment variable on latest or older Mac OSX.

1. Mac OSX 10.5 or later

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.

$ vim .bash_profile 
export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)
$ source .bash_profile
$ echo $JAVA_HOME
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.7.0.jdk/Contents/Home

Why /usr/libexec/java_home?
This java_home can return the Java version specified in Java Preferences for the current user. For examples,

/usr/libexec/java_home -V
Matching Java Virtual Machines (3):
    1.7.0_05, x86_64:	"Java SE 7"	/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.7.0.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.6.0_41-b02-445, x86_64:	"Java SE 6"	/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
    1.6.0_41-b02-445, i386:	"Java SE 6"	/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

This Mac OSX has three JDK installed.

##return top Java version
$ /usr/libexec/java_home
/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.7.0.jdk/Contents/Home
## I want Java version 1.6
$ /usr/libexec/java_home -v 1.6
/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

2. Older Mac OSX

For older Mac OSX, the /usr/libexec/java_home doesn’t exists, so, you should set JAVA_HOME to the fixed path :

$ vim .bash_profile 
export JAVA_HOME=/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home
$ source .bash_profile
$ echo $JAVA_HOME
/System/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/1.6.0.jdk/Contents/Home

References

1. Important Java Directories on Mac OS X
2. What should I set JAVA_HOME to on OSX