How to permanently set $PATH on Linux/Unix?

linux bash unix path zsh
Click Upvote picture Click Upvote · Feb 1, 2013 · Viewed 1.7M times · Source

I'm trying to add a directory to my path so it will always be in my Linux path. I've tried:

export PATH=$PATH:/path/to/dir

This works, however each time I exit the terminal and start a new terminal instance, this path is lost, and I need to run the export command again.

How can I do it so this will be set permanently?

Answer

mpowered picture mpowered · Feb 1, 2013

You need to add it to your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc file. 

export PATH="$PATH:/path/to/dir"

Depending on what you're doing, you also may want to symlink to binaries:

cd /usr/bin
sudo ln -s /path/to/binary binary-name

Note that this will not automatically update your path for the remainder of the session. To do this, you should run:

source ~/.profile 
or
source ~/.bashrc

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