以下是Lion OS 10.7.x中关于PATH变量的更多信息:

如果需要全局设置PATH，则PATH由系统按照如下顺序构建:

Parsing the contents of the file /private/etc/paths, one path per line Parsing the contents of the folder /private/etc/paths.d. Each file in that folder can contain multiple paths, one path per line. Load order is determined by the file name first, and then the order of the lines in the file. A setenv PATH statement in /private/etc/launchd.conf, which will append that path to the path already built in #1 and #2 (you must not use $PATH to reference the PATH variable that has been built so far). But, setting the PATH here is completely unnecessary given the other two options, although this is the place where other global environment variables can be set for all users.

这些路径和变量由所有用户和应用程序继承，因此它们是真正的全局路径——登出和登录不会重置这些路径——它们是为系统构建的，是在任何用户有机会登录之前创建的，因此对这些路径的更改需要重新启动系统才能生效。

顺便说一句，OS 10.7的干净安装。狮子没有环境。我可以找到plist，所以它可能工作，但也可能被弃用。

首先，要认识到OS X是建立在Unix之上的。这就是.bash_profile的用武之地。当你在OS X中启动Terminal应用程序时，默认情况下你会得到一个bash shell。bash shell来自Unix，当它加载时，它会运行.bash_profile脚本。您可以为您的用户修改此脚本以更改您的设置。这个文件位于:

~/.bash_profile

小牛队更新

OS X Mavericks不使用环境。plist -至少不是OS X windows应用程序。您可以为窗口应用程序使用launchd配置。仍然支持.bash_profile，因为它是终端中使用的bash shell的一部分。

只限狮子和山狮

OS X窗口应用程序从您的环境接收环境变量。plist文件。这可能就是你所说的“。”plist文件”。这个文件位于:

~/.MacOSX/environment.plist

如果你改变你的环境。plist文件，那么OS X windows应用程序，包括终端应用程序，将设置这些环境变量。您在.bash_profile中设置的任何环境变量只会影响您的bash shell。

通常我只在.bash_profile文件中设置变量，而不更改.plist文件(或Mavericks上的launchd文件)。大多数OS X窗口应用程序不需要任何自定义环境。只有当应用程序实际需要特定的环境变量时，我才更改环境。plist(或Mavericks上的launchd文件)。

听起来你想要的是改变环境。Plist文件，而不是.bash_profile。

最后一件事，如果你找那些文件，我想你是找不到的。如果我没记错的话，在我最初安装Lion时并没有。

编辑:这里有一些创建plist文件的说明。

打开Xcode Select File -> New -> New File… 在Mac OS X下选择“资源” 选择一个plist文件 按照剩下的提示操作

要编辑该文件，可以通过Control-click获得菜单并选择Add Row。然后可以添加键值对。对于环境变量，键是环境变量名，值是该环境变量的实际值。

一旦创建了plist文件，你可以用Xcode打开它，随时修改它。

打开终端:

vi ~/.bash_profile

将更改应用于系统(无需重启计算机):

source ~/.bash_profile

(也适用于macOS Sierra 10.12.1)

Your .profile or .bash_profile are simply files that are present in your "home" folder. If you open a Finder window and click your account name in the Favorites pane, you won't see them. If you open a Terminal window and type ls to list files you still won't see them. However, you can find them by using ls -a in the terminal. Or if you open your favorite text editor (say TextEdit since it comes with OS X) and do File->Open and then press Command+Shift+. and click on your account name (home folder) you will see them as well. If you do not see them, then you can create one in your favorite text editor.

现在，添加环境变量相对简单，在概念上与窗口非常相似。在你的.profile中，每行添加一个变量名和它的值，如下所示:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/Home
export JRE_HOME=/Library/Java/Home

etc.

如果你正在修改你的"PATH"变量，请确保包含系统已经为你设置的默认PATH:

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/my/stuff

现在是奇怪的部分，您可以打开一个新的终端窗口以使新变量生效，或者您需要键入.profile或.bash_profile来重新加载文件，并将内容应用到当前终端的环境中。

您可以在终端中使用“set”命令检查更改是否生效。只需输入set(如果您喜欢分页列表，可以再设置|)，并确保您添加到文件中的内容。

至于在GUI应用程序中添加环境变量，这通常是不必要的，我想听到更多关于你正在具体尝试做什么，以便更好地给你一个答案。

让我用我个人的例子，用一种非常多余的方式来说明。

First after installing JDK, make sure it's installed. Sometimes macOS or Linux automatically sets up environment variable for you unlike Windows. But that's not the case always. So let's check it. The line immediately after echo $JAVA_HOME would be empty if the environment variable is not set. It must be empty in your case. Now we need to check if we have bash_profile file. You saw that in my case we already have bash_profile. If not we have to create a bash_profile file. Create a bash_profile file. Check again to make sure bash_profile file is there. Now let's open bash_profile file. macOS opens it using it's default TextEdit program. This is the file where environment variables are kept. If you have opened a new bash_profile file, it must be empty. In my case, it was already set for python programming language and Anaconda distribution. Now, i need to add environment variable for Java which is just adding the first line. YOU MUST TYPE the first line VERBATIM. JUST the first line. Save and close the TextEdit. Then close the terminal. Open the terminal again. Let's check if the environment variable is set up.

更多细节，这可能会对某人有所帮助:

Due to my own explorations, I now know how to set environment variables in 7 of 8 different ways. I was trying to get an envar through to an application I'm developing under Xcode. I set "tracer" envars using these different methods to tell me which ones get it into the scope of my application. From the below, you can see that editing the "scheme" in Xcode to add arguments works, as does "putenv". What didn't set it in that scope: ~/.MACOS/environment.plist, app-specific plist, .profile, and adding a build phase to run a custom script (I found another way in Xcode [at least] to set one but forgot what I called the tracer and can't find it now; maybe it's on another machine....)

GPU_DUMP_DEVICE_KERNEL为3

GPU_DUMP_TRK_ENVPLIST是(null)

GPU_DUMP_TRK_APPPLIST是(null)

GPU_DUMP_TRK_DOTPROFILE是(null)

GPU_DUMP_TRK_RUNSCRIPT是(null)

GPU_DUMP_TRK_SCHARGS为1

GPU_DUMP_TRK_PUTENV为1

．.． 另一方面，如果我进入终端并说“设置”，它似乎唯一得到的是一个来自.profile(我本以为它会捡到环境。plist也是，而且我确信我曾经在终端中看到第二个跟踪程序envar，所以从那以后可能有什么东西不稳定了。漫长的一天……)