IntelliJ can't find my M2_HOME, why is that? [duplicate]

Question

When I create a new Maven project, I see an error message that says:

[FATAL_ERROR] Cannot start Maven: No valid Maven installation found. Either set the home directory in the configuration dialog or set the M2_HOME environment variable on your system.

In terminal (I'm on a Mac) if I do:

echo $M2

echo $M2_HOME

it displays the full path to my /apache-maven-3.0.3/bin and /apache-maven-3.0.3 folders.

Why would IntelliJ not be able to pick this up?

Answer 1

Environment variables set in terminal are not always visible to GUI applications:

• http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/51677
• http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/57385/17551
• http://stackoverflow.com/q/135688/104891