Maven Installation OSX Error Unsupported major.minor version 51.0

Question

The problem is because you haven't set JAVA_HOME in Mac properly. In order to do that, you should do set it like this:

export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_40.jdk/Contents/Home

In my case my JDK installation is jdk1.8.0_40, make sure you type yours.

Then you can use maven commands.

Regards!

Please rather try:

$JAVA_HOME/bin/java -version

Maven uses $JAVA_HOME for classpath resolution of JRE libs. To be sure to use a certain JDK, set it explicitly before compiling, for example:

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.7.0_51

Isn't there a version < 1.7 and you're using Maven 3.3.1? In this case the reason is a new prerequisite: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNG-5780

A dynamic $HOME/.zshrc solution, if you're like me ie. Linux @ work; MBP/A @ home

if [[ $(uname) == "Darwin" ]]; then export OSX=1; fi
if [[ $(uname) ==  "Linux" ]]; then export LINUX=1; fi

if [[ -n $OSX ]]; then
        export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)
else
        export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/default-java
fi

I solved it putting a old version of maven (2.x), using brew:

brew uninstall maven
brew tap homebrew/versions 
brew install maven2

In Eclipse, you don't need to change JAVA_HOME, you just need to change the run configuration for Maven to something above 1.6 (even if your project is on Java 6, Maven shouldn't be). Right-click the project, choose Maven Build or Run As > Run Configurations and set the correct JDK version.