Why do the environment variables keep getting wiped out in Mac OS Catalina

bashenvironment-variablesterminalzsh

I am currently using MacOS Catalina, and every time my computer boots up from having shut down the environment variables get wiped out. I literally have to manually run export FOO=bar each time my computer boots up.

I have tried adding the environment variables to ~/.bash_profile but that doesn't seem to work, I think because Catalina uses zsh as opposed to bash. (Is there a way to switch back?)

Anyways, how do I persist environment variables so that I don't have to manually export them every time? Could something be wrong with my computer that's causing this? There are also some other weird issues when my computer does a fresh boot.

Best Answer

You need to create a file ~/.zshrc and put your export statements in there. The shell does not magically remember what you exported last time. You will need to put them in a file that will get sourced each time you start your shell, such as .zshrc.

Additional paths

Additional paths can be added in /etc/paths.d by creating a text file there listing one path component per line (e.g. sudo echo /usr/local/superbin > /etc/paths.d/superbin).

Other environment variables

As more or less everything is controlled by launchd these days global environment variables can be specified directly in /etc/launchd.conf as described in this StackOverflow answer.

Defining environment variables with launchd/launchctl

For the sake of clarity, I will refer to this solution as the static solution, the second solution as the dynamic solution, and finally this one as the launch agent solution. I am going to compare the static and dynamic solution with the launch agent one, respectively.

The static solution involves the editing of /etc/launchd.conf. This has the advantage, as with the launch agent solution, that the variables are set right at the login. Disadvantages are that

the variables are defined for all users. The launch agent solution lets each user decide for himself. If one wants to define variables for all users with the launch agent solution, the shell script can be amended with a loop (and another file),
the definition of the variables in /etc/launchd.conf does not allow for things like variable substitution and such stuff (at least that is my guess, maybe it is feasible),
obviously, you need access to /etc/launchd.conf to pull the static solution off, with the other one you can put all files at accessible places, e.g. the launch agent in ~/Library/LaunchAgents/,
the variables are not available immediately after editing the file, as with the launch agent solution (but see below).

The dynamic solution is similar to the launch agent solution. Its disadvantage is that the variables are not available right after login, you first need to (re-)define them. To combine the dynamic solution with the other, imagine you wanted to set the variable FOO to the content of the variable BAR. You would fire up a shell, say the bash, and type

launchctl setenv FOO "$BAR"
echo 'setenv FOO $BAR' >> ~/.conf.launchd

Then FOO would be available in all applications started after this definition, and would also be defined right after the next login.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Why can’t I control environment variables via /etc/environment

Additional paths

Other environment variables

Defining environment variables with launchd/launchctl

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