Search code examples
macosandroid-studiojavajava-home

Using JDK that is bundled inside Android Studio as JAVA_HOME on Mac

I tried to open Android Device Monitor and the Studio showed me this message =-O : need to install Java SE 6 runtime error

It surprised me, because how have I been able to develop Android apps if I didn't have any Java installed?! Actually, Android Studio comes with bundled JDK/JRE (located in /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home), but it is not found by the system: executed usr/libexec/java_home gives

Unable to find any JVMs matching version "(null)".
No Java runtime present, try --request to install.

Setting $JAVA_HOME to /Applications/Android Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home did not help — source .bash_profile doesn't like that it's a directory.

QUESTION: I don't want to install new JDK if I already have one inside Android Studio. How do I set it as system default?

Solution

  • Solution:

    1. (Updated 2024) For Android Studio before Electric Eel 2022.1.1 and above: export JAVA_HOME=/Applications/Android\ Studio.app/Contents/jbr/Contents/Home
    2. MacOS versions before Big Sur: add line export JAVA_HOME=/Applications/Android\ Studio.app/Contents/jre/jdk/Contents/Home/ to .bash_profile file in your home directory. Run source ~/.bash_profile to update terminal.
    3. Catalina, Big Sur, Mentere and above: add line export JAVA_HOME=/Applications/Android\ Studio.app/Contents/jre/Contents/Home to .zshenv file in your home directory. Run source ~/.zshenv to update terminal.

    After that, running java -version gave this output and Java started to execute normally:

    openjdk version "1.8.0_112-release"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_112-release-b06)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.112-b06, mixed mode)

    As for the Android Device Monitor — it still demands this ancient JRE version 6.