Java installed on macOS but not found in terminal

Question

I installed Java 25 on my Mac running macOS Ventura 15.5. I downloaded the installer from Oracle’s official website and completed the installation. However, when I try to verify the installation in the terminal, Java is not found:

I ran the following commands after installation:

java -version
which java
ls /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/

What I expected:
I expected to see the installed Java version, e.g. java version "17.0.x", and for which java to point to the correct path.

What actually happened:
Instead, I got:

zsh: command not found: java

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking. — Community
– Community Bot, Commented Sep 30 at 9:12
Have you read this, specifically the "To run a different version of Java..." part? — robertklep
– robertklep, Commented Sep 30 at 9:20
which java should return /usr/bin/java. ls /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/ should show a jdk-25.jdk directory — greg-449
– greg-449, Commented Sep 30 at 9:28
which java on Unixes is mostly pointless owing to the use of symlinks. On Linux, you want readlink -f "$(which java)" on Mac, you could do brew install coreutils in order to do this, but you need to prepend $HOMEBREW_PREFIX/opt/coreutils/libexec/gnubin to PATH or you'll have to call it greadlink — g00se
– g00se, Commented Sep 30 at 18:07

RivelBop · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-02 14:58:06Z

1

Try reinstalling Java. One way you can do this is through the Java 25 JDK installer for MacOS from Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/downloads/#jdk25-mac
After running the installer, open your terminal and run the command java -version to ensure your Java installation was added to your PATH. You should see something like this:

java version "25.x.x" 2025-XX-XX
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 25...)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25...)

If the command failed, try checking your JVM directory, go to: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines, you should see directories listed like this (I have multiple Java installations):

Finder JVM Directory Example

If the directory is in there but the Java command from earlier was not recognized, add to PATH by typing the following into your terminal: nano ~/.zsh_profile or nano ~/.zshrc.

Using your down arrow key, go to the bottom of the file and type export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-25.jdk/Contents/Home".

This will set the JAVA_HOME variable that many Java-based apps use to find the JDK.

IMPORTANT: Make a new line underneath, and type export PATH="$JAVA_HOME/bin:$PATH".

This will tell the shell to look for commands in the Java bin directory.

Press ^X (control+x) keyboard shortcut to exit, press Y to confirm the change, and press return to save it to the file. COMPLETELY CLOSE YOUR TERMINAL AND OPEN A NEW ONE.

Now when you run java -version, it should hopefully work as expected!

edited Oct 2 at 14:58

answered Oct 2 at 4:24

RivelBop

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1 Comment

Basil Bourque Oct 2 at 6:00

Correction: There is no “official Java 25 JDK installer for MacOS”. You can obtain a JDK/JRE (implementation of Java) from any of several vendors. These include: Amazon, BellSoft, Adoptium by Eclipse Foundation, IBM, Red Hat, Azul Systems, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and more. All of these are “official” in that they have been extensively tested. See: Java Is Still Free.

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