Homebrew

Tips and tricks for working with the best package manager for MacOS!

Installation

Most recent instructions on brew.sh

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

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Commands

Find app

brew search visual-studio-code

==> Casks
visual-studio                     visual-studio-code ✔              visual-studio-code@insiders

Get app info

brew info awscli       
      
==> awscli: stable 2.17.27 (bottled), HEAD
Official Amazon AWS command-line interface
https://aws.amazon.com/cli/

Install app

brew install awscli

List installed apps

brew list     
                
==> Formulae
awscli			icu4c			mpfr			[email protected]

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macOS apps

Homebrew can manage macOS apps from the App Store! You just need to install mas first.

Refer to the mas documentation for more info.

brew install mas

Find app

mas search upnote

1398373917  UpNote: notes, diary, journal  (9.5.2)
1312926037  stoic. journal & mental health (2024.27)
1566998257  UpNote Web Clipper             (1.2.1)

Get app info

mas info 1398373917

UpNote: notes, diary, journal 9.5.2 [0.0]
By: UpNote Company Limited

Install app

mas install 1398373917

List installed apps

mas list

1352778147  Bitwarden  (2024.6.4)
1398373917  UpNote     (9.5.2)

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Brew Bundles & Brewfiles

A Brew Bundle is a Brewfile containing all of the apps you wish to install — including apps installed via the Mac App Store (if mas was used) and even VS Code extensions!

This is super useful when reimaging or moving to another system.

Generate Brewfile

This creates the Brewfile within the current directory.

brew bundle dump

Install Bundle

This installs apps from Brewfile

# uses Brewfile in the current directory
brew bundle install

# uses Brewfile stored elsewhere
brew bundle install --file /path/to/Brewfile