Setting GOPATH

The GOPATH environment variable specifies the location of your workspace. If no GOPATH is set, it is assumed to be $HOME/go on Unix systems and %USERPROFILE%\go on Windows. If you want to use a custom location as your workspace, you can set the GOPATH environment variable. This page explains how to set this variable on various platforms.

• Unix systems
  • Go 1.13
  • Bash
  • Zsh
  • fish
• Windows
  • Go 1.13
  • Windows 10 (GUI)
  • Windows 10 (command line)

Unix systems

GOPATH can be any directory on your system. In Unix examples, we will set it to $HOME/go (the default since Go 1.8). Note that GOPATH must not be the same path as your Go installation. Another common setup is to set GOPATH=$HOME.

Go 1.13+

go env -w GOPATH=$HOME/go

Bash

Edit your ~/.bash_profile to add the following line:

export GOPATH=$HOME/go

Save and exit your editor. Then, source your ~/.bash_profile.

source ~/.bash_profile

Zsh

Edit your ~/.zshrc file to add the following line:

export GOPATH=$HOME/go

Save and exit your editor. Then, source your ~/.zshrc.

source ~/.zshrc

fish

set -x -U GOPATH $HOME/go

The -x is used to specify that this variable should be exported and the -U makes this a universal variable, available to all sessions and persistent.

Windows

Your workspace can be located wherever you like, but we'll use C:\go-work in this example.

NOTE: GOPATH must not be the same path as your Go installation.

• Create a folder at C:\go-work.
• Right-click on “Start” and click on “Control Panel”. Select “System and Security”, then click on “System”.
• From the menu on the left, select the “Advanced system settings”.
• Click the “Environment Variables” button at the bottom.
• Click “New” from the “User variables” section.
• Type GOPATH into the “Variable name” field.
• Type C:\go-work into the “Variable value” field.
• Click OK.

Go 1.13+ (command line)

• Open a command prompt (Win + r then type cmd) or a powershell window (Win + i).
• Type go env -w GOPATH=c:\go-work.

Windows 10 (GUI)

There is a faster way to edit Environment Variables via search:

• Left click on “Search” and type env or environment.
• Select “Edit environment variables for your account”.
• ... and follow steps above.

Windows 10 (command line)

• Open a command prompt (Win + r then type cmd) or a powershell window (Win + i).
• Type setx GOPATH %USERPROFILE%\go. (This will set the GOPATH to your [home folder]\go, such as C:\Users\yourusername\go.)
• Close the command or PowerShell window. (The environment variable is only available for new command or PowerShell windows, not for the current window.)