The -V option lists all and is meant for your eyeballs, not for scripts. here, assign it to the JAVA_HOME env var. (the backticks mean: Run this then take the output of it and treat that as the 'value' of the expression. To 'override', you can use something like (depends on which shell you're using on your mac): export JAVA_HOME=`/usr/libexec/java_home -v 17` To see all installed javas, you can run: /usr/libexec/java_home -V Also, yes, if you just run java without specifying which one you want, you so happen to get java13 here. the java8 to java9 transition broke a ton of stuff, much of it needless and much of it not reasonably expectable or fixable by libraries and apps, so a bunch of java apps and libraries only run on java8 - just an example). This is often required java is not backwards compatible (it tries to change little, but e.g. Selecting a region changes the language and/or content on doesn't mind if you install multiple versions. Install Java runtime prompts when you attempt to use the applications.If the Java runtime is not installed, some issues that are known to occur include. Adobe recommends that corporate IT organizations pre install Java (or make sure that Java can be installed through their firewalls/security) to avoid conflicts with Adobe applications. If you encounter any issues, install Java to correct the problems. If you do not install Java before running an Adobe application, there can be missing or improperly behaving features.

At runtime, when you launch an Adobe application, you are prompted to install Java if it is not already installed. Or it can be installed later before you install Adobe applications. Adobe and Apple have worked together to ensure that you can install Java at OS install time. Since current Adobe installers and applications were built before these changes by Apple, Adobe software anticipates that Java is installed. It is now an optional install that you must select. Apple recently changed the way it includes Java in Mac OS, and with Lion, Java is no longer preinstalled. Many Adobe applications depend on the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) for some features to work.

Install jre mac