How to load environment variables from .env file using Vite

Question

I want to load environment variables from the .env file using Vite

I used the import.meta.env object as mentioned in Docs

.env file:

TEST_VAR=123F

when trying to access this variable via the import.meta.env -> import.meta.env.TEST_VAR it returns undefined.

so, how can I access them?

Answer 1

According to the docs, you need to prefix your variables with VITE_:

To prevent accidentally leaking env variables to the client, only variables prefixed with VITE_ are exposed to your Vite-processed code.

If you are trying to access env vars outside your app source code (such as inside vite.config.js), then you have to use loadEnv():

import { defineConfig, loadEnv } from 'vite';

export default ({ mode }) => {
    // Load app-level env vars to node-level env vars.
    process.env = {...process.env, ...loadEnv(mode, process.cwd())};

    return defineConfig({
      // To access env vars here use process.env.TEST_VAR
    });
}

Answer 2

if you want to access your env variable TEST_VAR you should prefix it with VITE_

try something like

VITE_TEST_VAR=123f

you can access it with

import.meta.env.VITE_TEST_VAR