Homebrew Cheat Sheet

This is a quick reference cheat sheet to getting started with homebrew.

Getting Started

Cleanup

Remove older versions of installed formulae.

brew cleanup

Remove older versions of specified formula.

brew cleanup <formula>

Display all formula that will be removed (dry run)

brew cleanup -n

Search, Install, Remove

List all the installed formulae.

brew list

Display all locally available formulae for brewing.

brew search

Perform a substring search of formulae names for brewing.

brew search <text>

Display information about the formula.

brew info <formula>

Install the formula.

brew install <formula>

Uninstall the formula.

brew uninstall <formula>

Cask

Tap the Cask repository from Github.

brew tap homebrew/cask

List all the installed casks .

brew cask list

Search all known casks based on the substring text.

brew search <text>

Install the given cask.

brew cask install <cask>

Reinstalls the given Cask

brew cask reinstall <cask>

Uninstall the given cask.

brew cask uninstall <cask>

Repositories

List all the current tapped repositories (taps)

brew tap

Tap a formula repository from Github using https for tap https://github.com/user/homebrew-repo

brew tap <user/repo>

Tap a formula repository from the specified URL

brew tap <user/repo> <URL>

Remove the given tap from the repository

brew untap <user/repo>

Updates

Fetch latest version of homebrew and formula

brew update

Show formulae with an updated version available

brew outdated

Upgrade all outdated and unpinned brews

brew upgrade

Upgrade only the specified brew

brew upgrade <formula>

Prevent the specified formulae from being upgraded

brew pin <formula>

Allow the specified formulae to be upgraded.

brew unpin <formula>

Help

Display the version of Homebrew.

brew --version

Print Help Information

brew help

Print Help Info for a brew command

brew help <sub-command>

Check system for potential problems.

brew doctor

Commands

brew install git Install a package
brew uninstall git Uninstall a package
brew upgrade git Upgrade package
brew unlink git Unlink
brew link git Link
brew switch git 1.0.0 Switch package version
brew list --versions git List the installed versions of package

Install

If not installed, instll Command Line Tools (CTL)

xcode-select --install

Install Homebrew :

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