Install and Use Multiple JDKs with jenv and Homebrew on macOS

Table of Contents

A short post for anyone who needs to have many different versions of Java installed on their macOS machine. It goes over installation of jenv and various temurin JDKs as well as how to switch between them super easily.

Install `jenv` #

Installation via Homebrew is easy

brew install jenv

Configure jenv to work in your shell by adding the following to your .zshrc (or .bashrc etc)

export PATH="$HOME/.jenv/bin:$PATH"
eval "$(jenv init -)"

Install JDK #

Install the latest JDK via Homebrew casks:

brew install --cask temurin

To install multiple versions side-by-side do this:

brew tap homebrew/cask-versions
brew search temurin # this will list all the versions you can install
brew install --cask temurin17 temurin20 temurin21 # etc...

Add the JDKs to `jenv` #

Once installed you can add them to jenv like so

jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/temurin-17.jdk/Contents/Home
jenv add /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/temurin-20.jdk/Contents/Home
# ... etc

Using `jenv` #

Then switch between them in your shell with

jenv shell 20 # switch your shell to JDK 20
java -version # print the current version!

openjdk version "20.0.2" 2023-07-18
OpenJDK Runtime Environment Temurin-20.0.2+9 (build 20.0.2+9)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM Temurin-20.0.2+9 (build 20.0.2+9, mixed mode)

More Tips #

You could also make some shell aliases to make it even easier/faster:

javahome() {
  jenv shell $1
  java -version
}

alias j17='javahome 16'
alias j18='javahome 17'
alias j20='javahome 20'
alias j21='javahome 21'

Now you can just do j17 in the shell etc.

Even More Tips #

You can list all the versions of Java that jenv knows about with jenv versions.
Configure the global default java version with jenv global 20
If anything ever seems wonky, or JDKs are (re)moved, run jenv rehash to fix them

Hopefully this post can help someone!

Install jenv #