MacOS Environment Variables

For the Current Login Sessionedit

To add an environment variable to the system for the duration of this login, open Terminal and type the following:

launchctl setenv ENV_VAR value

The variable will take effect the next time you startup TouchDesigner. To remove the variable, in Terminal enter:

launchctl unsetenv ENV_VAR

For Every Login Sessionedit

To have the environment variables set for every login session, create a file name ca.derivative.environment.plist in your user library directory ~/Library/LaunchAgents. You may need to create the LaunchAgents directory if it does not exist. Paste the following into the file and update with your environment variables.:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
  <!--to set value: launchctl setenv TOUCH_ENV_VAR value-->
  <!--to unset value: launchctl unsetenv TOUCH_ENV_VAR-->
  <key>Label</key>
  <string>ca.derivative.environment</string>
  <key>ProgramArguments</key>
  <array>
    <string>sh</string>
    <string>-c</string>
    <string>
launchctl setenv ENV_VAR_1 value1;
launchctl setenv ENV_VAR_2 value2;
    </string>
  </array>
  <key>RunAtLoad</key>
  <true/>
</dict>
</plist>

These variables will be loaded at the start of each login session. They may not be available in the applications that are automatically reopened by the system. To stop loading the variables for the remaining of your login, you will need to unload the file and also unset the environment variables in the file via Terminal

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ca.derivative.environment.plist
launchctl unsetenv ENV_VAR_1
launchctl unsetenv ENV_VAR_2

You can run the following to reload the environment variables again.

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ca.derivative.environment.plist

If you no longer want certain environment variables to be defined, you can remove them from your plist file or remove the plist file. Restart your system, or unload the plist file and unset the variables in Terminal to take effect for the rest of the session.

See also: Variables