Modifying $PATH on my mac for the first time

Question

Currently learning how to use Linux, and recently got introduced to $PATH.

Upon checking out the $PATH on my mac I found a few paths that I think shouldn't be there in the first place.

Here's what I got:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/bin://anaconda/bin://anaconda/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

I had downloaded Anaconda a few weeks ago but decided to uninstall it. Is it safe for me to delete those paths?

Any good practices I should know before fooling around with this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, if you no longer use Anaconda, there is no reason for that in your $PATH. In other words, it is safe to remove.

Any good practices I should know before fooling around with this?

Well, it might be good to save your default path somewhere, if you should somehow mess it up!
Just checking in on a machine running OS X 10.11, with nothing modified, the default path is:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

If you want to alter the path, you could put it in your $HOME/.profile. I have this on another OS X machine's $HOME/.profile:

PATH=$PATH:/Users/maulinglawns/bin
export PATH

And the $PATH here is:

/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/Users/maulinglawns/bin

The bin directory in my "home" under this machine is where I keep my own scripts and applications, so it makes sense to add it to the $PATH.