Golang setup in Mac OSX with HomeBrew. Set `GOPATH` and `GOROOT` variables in zshell, fish or bash.

.bashrc

# Set variables in .bashrc file

# don't forget to change your path correctly!

export GOPATH=$HOME/golang
export GOROOT=/usr/local/opt/go/libexec
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

.zshrc

# Set variables in .zshrc file

# don't forget to set path correctly!

export GOPATH=$HOME/golang
export GOROOT=/usr/local/opt/go/libexec
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

config.fish

# Set variables in config.fish file

# don't forget to set path correctly!

# GOLANG configurations
set -x GOPATH $HOME/golang
set -x GOROOT /usr/local/opt/go/libexec
set PATH $GOPATH/bin $GOROOT/bin $PATH

install.sh

echo "Please enter your golang path (ex: $HOME/golang) :"
read gopath

echo "Please enter your github username (ex: vsouza) :"
read user


mkdir $gopath
mkdir -p $gopath/src/github.com/$user

export GOPATH=$gopath
export GOROOT=/usr/local/opt/go/libexec
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
brew update
brew install go
brew install git

go get golang.org/x/tools/cmd/godoc
go get golang.org/x/tools/cmd/vet

@javaducky thanks man - super helpful!

better get the prefix via brew --prefix

Anyone on Apple silicon will need to instead use the updated prefix for Homebrew, i.e. /opt/homebrew instead of /usr/local. The remainder of the paths will be the same.

The .zshrc example would therefore be:

# Set variables in .zshrc file

# don't forget to set path correctly!

export GOPATH=$HOME/golang
export GOROOT=/opt/homebrew/opt/go/libexec
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

👍🏼

yeah I used go env first, and then used this as a guide to modify my .zshrc, trusting that go env was correct. Annoyingly GOBIN was '' though, so I'm not 100% sure the stability of homebrew golang recipe.

For Apple M3 with .zshrc

Here is the path I have used.

Make sure to change the Go Version according to your local setup and validate the existence of these directories

export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export GOROOT=/opt/homebrew/Cellar/go/1.23.3/libexec
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$GOROOT/bin

GOROOT does not need to be set with go versions after 1.0. Setting it can cause errors. Go knows where it lives.

If you want to install packages with go, then also set GOPROXY and GOSUMDB.

export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin
export GOPROXY=https://proxy.golang.org,direct
export GOSUMDB="sum.golang.org"

Apple silicon, macOS Sequoia, 15.6.1 (24G90), Homebrew 4.6.7, go 1.25.0