Setting environment variables on OS X

Question

What is the proper way to modify environment variables like PATH in OS X?

I\'ve looked on Google a little bit and found three different files to edit:

Answer 1

Up to and including OS X v10.7 (Lion) you can set them in:

~/.MacOSX/environment.plist

See:

• https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/qa/qa1067/_index.html
• https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/BPRuntimeConfig/Articles/EnvironmentVars.html

For PATH in the Terminal, you should be able to set in .bash_profile or .profile (you'll probably have to create it though)

For OS X v10.8 (Mountain Lion) and beyond you need to use launchd and launchctl.