I added another file to /etc/paths.d containing the file I want to add the path environment variable on macOS Sequoia. The file is saved. I need my Mac to pay attention, to update the PATH with the new item.
👉🏽 How do I get my Mac to update the path now?
I assume a restart of macOS will establish a newly updated path. But that seems extreme. How can I prompt an update of $PATH without bothering to restart the computer?
Use your shell's builtin exec command to replace your current shell with a new interactive login shell. For the Bourne Again Shell:
First minimize your PATH variable, which will prevent path_helper from mangling your expected results.
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin
then
exec bash -l
bash nowadays. That would be a deliberate choice. bash to zsh, so a lot of people will still use bash. exec $SHELL -l, it might. Depending on how you are invoking your currently running shell. More than a few people don't or won't use chsh and just mangle the launch config in Terminal.app. Running
PATH=$(cat /etc/paths.d/NEWFILE):$PATH will add the new path element directly into the current session.
export PATH="$PATH:/my/new/path". Or you can use path_helper as per this answer.