IntelliJ IDEA "The selected directory is not a valid home for JDK"

I just installed IntelliJ IDEA and I'm trying to set it up. I've gotten to the part where I need to select my home directory for my JDK.

I tried navigating to my Java installation, C:\Program Files (x86)\Java, and clicked okay but it told me the message above. So, I tried C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre7 and that didn't work either.

I tried reinstalling the latest JDK (from here) and I still couldn't choose my JDK. I even dragged the .jar installer I got from the website and the file selector window wouldn't recognize it.

I'm at a standstill and I don't know what to do.

Because you are choosing jre dir. and not JDK dir. JDK dir. is for instance (depending on update and whether it's 64 bit or 32 bit): C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.7.0_45 In my case it's 32 bit JDK 1.7 update 45

This error occurs because if you choosing the path deep in JDK or JRE. The exact path that should be chosen is in my case 64 bit > C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_91

if 32 bit

> C:\Program Files (86)\Java\jdk1.8.0_91

For anyone on a Mac with a homebrew-installed openjdk, you need to use the directory under libexec: <openjdk11_directory>/libexec/openjdk.jdk/Contents/Home.

Thanks to https://intellij-support.jetbrains.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360007751379/comments/360001513560.

May be your jdk is in /usr/lib/jvm/. This variant for linux.

I had the same issue. But I figured it out by choosing this path:

First at all, you need to select the C:\ folder. Then, you select Program Files. After it, you select java, and finally the jdk you downloaded. In my case, I downloaded the JDK1.8.0_60 version.

To resume the path:

C:\Program Files\java\jdk1.8.0_60

After you are done with it, you can click on the button next. Then you select the create project from templates. This will create a java application with a main() method. After it, you click next to create the name of you project.

I hope this helps you.

One thing we should note: the jdk should be installed on C: drive.

I had JDK installed on my D: drive like this:

D:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_101

And it would still give me the same error. For some reason Java should be installed on C: drive.

for me ,with JDK11 and IntelliJ 2016.3 , I kept getting the same message so I decided to uninstall JDK11 and installed JDK8 instead and it immediately worked!

I ended up needing to replace 2017 with 2019, and everything worked fine. /shrug... no other suggestions here worked for me.

I had \bin as part of the path. Up one level of the selected directory worked for me.

It got this error because I had managed to clobber jdk1.8.0_60 with the jre!

In case you missed the configuration at the Project Structure(File -> Project Structure), just reconfigure it like below:

For Java

For Android

Enjoy coding J

I had the same problem. The solution was to update IntelliJ to the newest version.

Although JDK version 8 can be added into IntelliJ IDEA version 2017.2.6, I couldn't add JDK version 11.0.14 into and got the same error. Because of this, I downloaded new version of IntelliJ IDEA version (2021.3.2) and I could add JDK 11.0.14 into IntelliJ easily without any error. Using newer release of IntelliJ than JDK release can be reasonable recommendation for people who meet this kind of problems.

For Windows, apparently the JDK has to be under C:\Program Files.

This does not work:

C:\dev\Java\jdk1.8.0_191     

This works:

C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_191     

(I'm using IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate 2018.2.4.)