Install Java SE 7 / JDK 1.7 on Mac OS X

Newest post on how to install Oracle JDK 8 / Java SE 8 on Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite can be found here.

At the time of this writing, there is no official release of Java SE 7 / Oracle JDK 1.7 on Mac OS X. It is still in developer preview based on Apple’s contributions to OpenJDK. The Developer Preview is provided to the community so that the developers can get feedback on the ongoing progress of the project. The developer preview should work on any Intel-based Mac and has been tested on Mac OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion).

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UPDATE

Oracle has launched the official Java SE 7 for Mac OS X 64-bit platform. You can download it from here.

$ java -version
java version "1.7.0_04"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_04-b21)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.0-b21, mixed mode)

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This tutorial shows you how to install Java SE 7 Developer Preview on Mac OS X 10.7.2 Lion running on my MacBook Pro.

1. Download the Oracle JDK7 Mac OS X port dmg file from here. At the time of this writing, the version of the JDK7 is Oracle JDK7 build b223 released on December 23, 2011. The dmg file name is jdk-7-ea-macosx-b223.dmg

2. Create a JavaVirtualMachines folder under /Library/Java if it doesn’t exist.

sudo mkdir /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines

In my case, the JavaVirtualMachines is already there so I don’t need to create it manually.

3. Open the jdk-7-ea-macosx-b223.dmg file by double-clicking on it. Then drag the JDK 1.7.0 Developer Preview icon in the left side to the JavaVirtualMachines icon folder in the right side.

4. Go to /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines directory using Finder application. Then double-click the ‘JDK 1.7.0 Developer Preview’ icon. This will open the Java Preferences window. Here you can change the preferred order of the installed Java platforms by dragging it up or down. Make sure the Java SE 7 is in the preferred order or you can simply deselect the Java SE 6 version.

5. Now issue the ‘java -version’ command in the terminal window to verify.

$ java -version
openjdk version "1.7.0-ea"
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0-ea-b223)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 21.0-b17, mixed mode)

6. Done