Where are Java preferences stored on Mac OS X?

Question

On Windows, the Java preferences, which you access in your application from java.util.prefs.Preferences are stored in the registry. Where are those stored on Mac OS X?

Answer 1

From Apple Developer Connection:

The preferences files generated by the Preferences API are named com.apple.java.util.prefs. The user’s preferences file is stored in their home directory (~/Library/Preferences/). The system preferences are stored in /Library/Preferences/ and are only persisted to disk if the user is an administrator.

Answer 2

Also, note that if the preference is nested enough, it won't directly be in com.apple.java.util.prefs, but rather in its own file. For instance, if you have a node /a/b/c, the key/value pairs for that node will be stored in a.b.c.plist.

The file will be either in ~/Library/Preferences/ or /Library/Preferences/, as for the com.apple.java.util.prefs file.

References: java-dev post by Greg Parker