How do I add ~/bin to my path?

Question

I've been having trouble modifying my path to add Sublime Text 2. I've added a ~/bin directory and run this command:

ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" ~/bin/subl

The subl link appears in ~/bin. But I need to add the ~/bin directory to my path. I'm fairly new at this, and I don't know where my path is. I've looked around, and found that the likely files are either .profile, .bash_profile or .bashrc

I don't have a .bash_profile. To .profile and .bashrc I added

PATH=$PATH:~/bin/subl
export PATH

Is that the right thing to add? And if so, where should I add it?

When I echo $PATH, I get:

/Users/<username>/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@rails3tutorial2ndEd/bin:/Users/<username>/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.3-p194@global/bin:/Users/<username>/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p194/bin:/Users/<username>/.rvm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

When I type subl, I get:

-bash: subl: command not found

Thanks!

p.s. I had previously installed Macports, which modified my .profile file. Not sure if this has anything to do with it - I now don't know what the default .profile looks like.

Your title and first paragraph refer to `/bin`, but the rest of your question refers to `~/bin`. — Keith Thompson, May 26 '12 at 20:12
You're right - a sign of my near total ignorance of what I'm doing with directory paths. I found a hack of a workaround by moving the subl file into the .rvm/bin, which *is* in my PATH. That's all I needed to do for now, I'll leave understanding how to do it properly until I learn UNIX better. — Graeme, May 26 '12 at 23:34
Do not put the executable "subl" in the literal path. Just put its location, which is ~/bin. Also, look in /etc/profile to get a ~/.bashrc sourced when you launch Terminal.app. — bojolais, May 27 '12 at 17:50

score 92 · Answer 1 · edited May 26 '16 at 17:02

92

I was just as new to this as you, which means I wasn't even sure how to read half the stuff related to modifying PATH. Eventually though I came upon a way to do it that doesn't require you to put subl into the .rvm/bin (since that is for something else) but in its appropriate directory, which is ~/bin.

Go to your terminal and type:

open -a Finder /usr/bin

This will open your Finder to the /usr/bin directory. Once you're there open a new Finder, go to Applications, right click on the Sublime Text icon and go to Show Package Contents, then to Contents, SharedSupport, bin. Copy the subl file and paste it into the other Finder showing /usr/bin

That's it! You should be set to use the command:

subl . (or subl file.name)

edited May 26 '16 at 17:02

Chris Williams

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answered Sep 03 '12 at 13:40

dgamboa

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easiest way to do it, props for sharing this – pbojinov Jul 29 '13 at 03:54
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To use a symlink, see Igor's answer below. – Obromios May 14 '15 at 07:09
Typing just `open /usr/bin` does the same thing as the terminal will open Finder by default when you don't specify an app. – bert Mar 15 '16 at 10:29

score 62 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 30 '14 at 04:53

62

Instread of all commented here. You need add symlink to sublime in /usr/local/bin. Its not require a root access. And don't need to create another bin directory.

For Sublime Text 2

ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text\ 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /usr/local/bin/

For Sublime Text 3

ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /usr/local/bin/

answered Sep 30 '14 at 04:53

Igor A. Melekhine

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+1 This worked for me - the key is not to use the speech marks around /Applications...../bin/subl as stated in Sublime Text's docs (https://www.sublimetext.com/docs/2/osx_command_line.html). – WorkingMatt Jan 21 '15 at 18:00

Shawn · Answer 3 · 2014-12-04T22:49:11.820

Update for zsh For some reason, "~/bin" in my path wasn't working when I recently switched from bash to zsh/prezto. I changed it to "/Users/myusername/bin" and it works fine once again. I'll be looking for a reason why and update when I find it. Please comment if you have a better solution.

I know this is an old post, but thought I'd document a solution for anyone else trying to follow the instructions given by sublimetext for working with sublime from the OSX command line verbatim. Update for Sublime text 3 Sublime Text 3 Documentation

1) Create a directory called "bin" in your home directory "~/"

mkdir ~/bin

2) Create a symbolic link to your sublime text 2 app in the new directory you just created

ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" ~/bin/subl

Update for Sublime Text 3 app path is slightly different:

ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" ~/bin/subl

3) Follow Ryan Hoffman's instructions on how to easily add to the path in OSX: add to the path on Mac OSX Add the newly created "~/bin" to the path using his technique. Your /etc/paths file will look something like this when you're done (notice ~/bin at the end):

/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin
/usr/local/bin
~/bin

4) Open a new terminal window to start using subl from the command line.

This is the right answer, it worked for me perfectly (Mac OSX 10.8.4) — AntonioOtero, Aug 28 '13 at 21:30
I appended it to this part of my .zshrc file and it worked. # User configuration `export PATH="/usr/local/heroku/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/Users/username/bin"` — Will Farley, Nov 15 '15 at 19:34
Why do so many answers say to create a `bin` in `/usr/local`?? **This answer** worked — , May 09 '19 at 16:14

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered May 26 '12 at 17:46

11

You don't need to do PATH=$PATH:~/bin/subl. Instead, PATH=$PATH:~/bin is sufficient. That way, you are telling the shell to look into ~/bin for binaries. With your command, you told the shell to look into the "folder" ~/bin/subl for binaries, which doesn't work. Furthermore, you don't need to add the commands in two files. Add them once in your .bashrc. I am not a bash expert, but I can recommend reading this blog post for further explanations of the different startup files.

answered May 26 '12 at 17:46

Gnosophilon

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That blog post was useful, thanks. I still didn't properly solve the problem, but I found a workaround by inserting the subl file into a directory which is in my path. – Graeme May 26 '12 at 23:38

score 7 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 22 '14 at 18:25

I'd like to pose an alternate solution to this problem. Use a directory already in your path. Like this:

$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/local/bin/subl

tl;dr

I ran into the same problem in Yosemite (OS X 10.10) where, in a fresh install of the OS, the ~/bin directory doesn't exist and isn't in your path. Yet there are lots of useful places already in your path you could place the symlink to Sublime.

For example here are the items currently in my path (use $ echo $PATH to get a list):

/Applications/Postgres.app/Contents/Versions/9.3/bin
/usr/local/bin
/usr/bin
/bin
/usr/sbin
/sbin:/usr/local/bin
/usr/local/mysql/bin

You can easily modify the script to use a location already in your path by changing the part that says ~/bin/subl to /usr/local/bin/subl

Thus, running the following command will accomplish your goal.

$ sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/local/bin/subl

This is it! This is the answer that should be accepted for OSX 10.10 and up. The key is to add the /usr/local/bin/subl to your paths, using sudo nano /etc/paths. Then you can perform the symlink. — Christian Gossain, Oct 04 '15 at 00:06

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 14 '14 at 16:22

You need to first create a symbolic link to /usr/bin. A symbolic link - or SymLink - is an alias or shortcut to a directory. Do as follow:

First, make sure you are in your Home directory using the Terminal command line

cd ~
Create a symbolic link to your usr/bin directory.

ln -s /usr/bin bin

Where ln = create a link, -s = symbolic, followed by the [target diectory] and [name of link]
Test your new link

cd bin

This should take you to your ~/bin - same as /usr/bin. The ~ indicates there's a long path hidden inside.
Now, go back to your Home folder to install the subl command

cd ~
Install the Sublime Text 2 command line tool. I'll be using sudo to bypass any permission blocks.

sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text 2.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" ~/bin/subl

You should be good to go! Test it by simply entering subl as your command line and it should launch Sublime Text 2 from Terminal.

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 09 '14 at 23:46

I had been struggling with this problem recently. I realized that the ~ isn't expanded to your home directory in the path. At least it wasn't for me.

This is what I did to make it work.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

My subl was linked from the application directory into my ~/bin per some followup instructions I found for brew cask. Unfortunately the path was never updated.

score 3 · Answer 8 · answered Aug 05 '17 at 03:50

3

echo $PATH

and use one of the path already in there. In this example "/usr/local/bin"

sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/local/bin/subl

if the system return No such file or directory

sudo mkdir /usr/local/bin/
sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/local/bin/subl

test if it's working

subl

This is for Sublime Text 3.

answered Aug 05 '17 at 03:50

sparkbold

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I followed a bunch of the above, nup. I did this - yup. Thanks dude, nice and simple. – danjah Aug 05 '17 at 08:24

score 2 · Answer 9 · answered Jan 28 '13 at 17:50

had the same challenge and ended up just creating a .bash_profile file, and adding the path statement directly there. Worked without incident. You may want to also check out Alvin Alexander's sample .bash_profile post (http://alvinalexander.com/blog/post/mac-os-x/sample-mac-osx-bashrc-terminal-startup-file) - I found a couple of other helpful commands that I'll be adding as well.

score 2 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 04 '14 at 17:42

Simple do it this on the terminal:

sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /usr/bin/subl

That is where my Sublime is stored, try to type the path to Sublime because your version may differ.

subl .

Should be working fine.

Birkhoff Lee · Answer 11 · 2016-07-05T19:01:55.003

Here are the full instructions to do this (for Sublime Text 3):

Please check your System Integrity Protection status by the following command:
```
$ csrutil status
```
If it's enabled, please follow these steps:
1. Boot to the Recovery OS of OS X by restarting your machine and holding down Command + R at startup.
2. Launch Terminal from the Utilities menu.
3. Run the following command:
```
$ csrutil disable
$ reboot
```
This is due to a security feature of OS X called System Integrity Protection, which will protect against unauthorised access to system locations and processes. So if this feature is enabled, you won't be able to modify the content of /usr/bin.
Create a symlink from /usr/bin to ~/bin:
```
$ sudo ln -s /usr/bin ~/bin
```

Create a symlink from the Sublime Text 3 CLI tool to ~/bin:

$ sudo ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl ~/bin

Test it.
```
$ subl .
```

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Oct 03 '13 at 13:05

0

following works with me. I have Sublime version 3 and posting it here if someone is looking for help:

sudo ln -s "/Applications/Sublime Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl" /bin/subl

answered Oct 03 '13 at 13:05

avi

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Aug 05 '15 at 01:15

0

It seems like in Yosemite the command is actually for Sublime 3, but I may be mistaken:

    ln -s /Applications/Sublime\ Text.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/subl /usr/local/

answered Aug 05 '15 at 01:15

William Koplitz

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Feb 09 '22 at 20:48

On MacOS 11, this command worked for me to establish a symlink for Sublime Merge. The main difference seems to be calling ln with the -sv instead of -s:

ln -sv "/Applications/Sublime Merge.app/Contents/SharedSupport/bin/smerge" /usr/local/bin/smerge

How do I add ~/bin to my path?

14 Answers14

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