- How to Set JAVA_HOME for JDK & JRE: A Step-by-Step Guide
- Windows
- macOS
- Linux
- Expert Q&A
- You Might Also Like
- About This Article
- Is this article up to date?
- Quizzes
- You Might Also Like
- Set JAVA_HOME on Windows 7, 8, 10, Mac OS X, Linux
- How to set JAVA_HOME on Windows 10?
- 1. Advanced System Settings
- 2. Environment Variables
- 3. Add JAVA_HOME
- 4. Update PATH
- 5. Test
- References
- Setting the JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows
- Set the JAVA_HOME Variable
- Set the JAVA_HOME variable via the command line
How to Set JAVA_HOME for JDK & JRE: A Step-by-Step Guide
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA. Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions.
This article has been viewed 323,663 times.
Are you seeing Java errors like «JAVA_HOME is not defined correctly?» or «JAVA_HOME is set to an invalid directory?» If you’ve recently installed the Java Development Kit (JDK) or the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), you’ll need to set your JAVA_HOME variables and configure the path so applications know where to find Java. This wikiHow article will show you the easiest ways to change or set the Java home path on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
- Before you can set JAVA_HOME, you’ll need the full path to your JDK or JRE installation.
- Once you set the JAVA_HOME environment variable, you can run the command echo $JAVA_HOME to see the new path.
- To set the Java home and path on Linux or macOS permanently (even after a reboot), add the environment variables to your .bashrc or .zshrc file.
Windows
- Open File Explorer, click This PC in the left panel, then navigate to C:\Program Files\Java. The directory you’re looking for should have the name of the JDK version, such as C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-19.
- If you installed the JRE instead of the JDK, you’ll have something like C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_351 instead.
- You can also open the command prompt and run the command wmic product where «Name like ‘%%Java%%'» get installlocation,Name . This will tell you the full path of the JDK, even if you haven’t yet set JAVA_HOME.
- Press the Windows key on your keyboard and type advanced system .
- Click View advanced system settings in the search results.
Click the Environment Variables button. You’ll see it at the bottom-right corner of the System Properties window.
- If you have multiple installations of the JDK and want to change JAVA_HOME to your new installation, select the current JAVA_HOME user variable and click Edit… instead.
- If you’re editing the current JAVA_HOME path, you’ll already have JAVA_HOME here. So, you can skip this step.
- If you’re adding a second path to JAVA_HOME, just type a semicolon (;) after the first path, then enter the second path.
- If you’re replacing an old JAVA_HOME path, just delete the current path and enter the new one.
- If you want other users on this PC to be able to access Java binaries from the command line, repeat this step for the «Path» variable under «System variables» as well.
- Click the New button at the top.
- Enter the full path to the JRE or JDK with \bin at the end. For example, C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-19\bin or C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_351\bin.
- Click OK.
- You won’t need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect, but you will need to relaunch any apps that were trying to access Java.
- Open a new command prompt window and run the command echo %JAVA_HOME% to display the new path to JAVA_HOME.
- Make sure this is a new command prompt window. If you still have the same window open, the command will fail because it doesn’t have the new environment variables.
macOS
Open a Terminal window. To open Terminal, search for Terminal in Spotlight. Or, you can open Finder, click the Go menu, select Utilities, and choose the Terminal app.
- If you have more than one Java installation and want to see the paths to all of them, use /usr/libexec/java_home -V instead.
Copy the path and paste it somewhere handy. Highlight the path to the Java installation you want to use as JAVA_HOME, press Cmd + V to copy it, then paste it into a sticky note or text file.
- Type cd ~ and press Return.
- Type open .zshrc and press Return. This should open the file in a text editor.
- If the file is not found, type echo > .zshrc and press Return. Then, run open .zshrc again.
- export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-17.0.1.jdk/Contents/Home
- Replace /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-17.0.1.jdk/Contents/Home with the full path to the /Contents/Home directory of your Java installation if it’s different.
Type source .zshrc and press ⏎ Return . Once you’ve edited your profile, this command ensures that your environment variables will be updated for the current terminal window (and any other windows you open from now on).
- If you had any other windows open that were attempting to find Java binaries, close and reopen them.
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Linux
- readlink -f `which javac`
- If that doesn’t work, try running update-alternatives —list java .
- If neither of these commands works, run whereis java , which will usually result in a symbolic link like /usr/bin/java.
- Once you get the directory, find out where it links using ls -la /bin/java .
- If that points you to another directory, e.g., /etc/alternatives/java, run ls -la /etc/alternatives/java .
- At that point, you should see a much longer directory, which is actually the home to the Java binaries. For example, usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-arm64/bin/java . This is the directory you want.
- echo «export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-arm64» >> ~/.bashrc
- echo «export PATH=$PATH:$JAVA_HOME/bin» >> ~/.bashrc
Expert Q&A
In Linux, you can set JAVA__HOME for all users by editing the global .bashrc, which is located at /etc/bash.bashrc. Just use echo and replace ~/.bashrc with /etc/bash.bashrc .
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About This Article
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Nicole Levine, MFA. Nicole Levine is a Technology Writer and Editor for wikiHow. She has more than 20 years of experience creating technical documentation and leading support teams at major web hosting and software companies. Nicole also holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Portland State University and teaches composition, fiction-writing, and zine-making at various institutions. This article has been viewed 323,663 times.
Is this article up to date?
Quizzes
You Might Also Like
Use Easy Windows CMD Commands to Check Your Java Version
How to Do Division in Java (Integer and Floating Point)
How to Compile and Run Java Programs Using Notepad++
Set JAVA_HOME on Windows 7, 8, 10, Mac OS X, Linux
As always, the writeup is super practical and based on a simple application that can work with documents with a mix of encrypted and unencrypted fields.
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How to set JAVA_HOME on Windows 10?
This tutorial shows you how to set a JAVA_HOME system variable on Windows 10.
1. Advanced System Settings
Type advanced system settings in the search box (beside the Windows start button), clicks View advanced system settings .
2. Environment Variables
Select Advance tab, clicks Environment Variables
3. Add JAVA_HOME
In System variables, clicks New. button to add a new JAVA_HOME variable and point it to the JDK installed folder.
- Correct – C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_60
- Wrong – C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_60\bin
4. Update PATH
In System variables, find PATH , clicks edit. button :
4.1 In old version of Windows, it will prompt you below dialog box to edit the values directly, append this %JAVA_HOME%\bin; to the end of the line.
4.2 In latest Windows 10, it will prompt you below dialog box, clicks on New button, and add this %JAVA_HOME%\bin
Note
Puts the %JAVA_HOME%\bin in PATH make all the Java’s commands (java, javac, jstack and etc) are accessible from everywhere.5. Test
Open a command prompt, type :
C:\Users\mkyong>java -version java version "1.8.0_60" Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_60-b27) Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.60-b23, mixed mode) C:\Users\mkyong>javac -version javac 1.8.0_60 C:\Users\mkyong>echo %JAVA_HOME% C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_60
References
mkyong
Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.
Setting the JAVA_HOME Variable in Windows
To install Confluence manually on Windows, you will need to set an environment variable to point Confluence to the your Java installation directory.
This information is only relevant if you’re installing Confluence manually on a Windows server. If you’re using the installer, you don’t need to do this.
In most cases you should set the JRE_HOME environment variable, but if it is not set, Confluence will use JAVA_HOME.
Related pages
Set the JAVA_HOME Variable
To set the JRE_HOME or JAVA_HOME variable:
- Locate your Java installation directory
If you didn’t change the path during installation, it’ll be something like C:\Program Files\Eclipse Adoptium\jdk-11.0.17.8-hotspot\ or C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-17.0.4.1\ You can also type where java at the command prompt.
- Do one of the following:
Windows 7 – Right click My Computer and select Properties >Advanced
Windows 8 – Go to Control Panel >System >Advanced System Settings
Windows 10 – Search for Environment Variables then select Edit the system environment variables - Click the Environment Variables button.
- Under System Variables, click New.
- In the Variable Name field, enter either:
- JAVA_HOME if you installed the JDK (Java Development Kit)
or - JRE_HOME if you installed the JRE (Java Runtime Environment)
- JAVA_HOME if you installed the JDK (Java Development Kit)
- In the Variable Value field, enter your JDK or JRE installation path.
- Click OK and Apply Changes as prompted
- Open Command Prompt (make sure you Run as administrator so you’re able to add a system environment variable).
- Set the value of the environment variable to your JDK (or JRE) installation path as follows:
You’ll need to close and re-open any command windows that were open before you made these changes, as there’s no way to reload environment variables from an active command prompt. If the changes don’t take effect after reopening the command window, restart Windows.
Set the JAVA_HOME variable via the command line
If you would prefer to set the JAVA_HOME (or JRE_HOME) variable via the command line:
setx /m JAVA_HOME "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk11.0.17.8"