brew: Cheat Sheet

Learn essential commands for installing, updating, and managing software packages on macOS with this quick reference guide. Perfect for macOS users and developers!

Homebrew is a package manager for macOS that simplifies the installation, updating, and management of software packages.

To list software you currently have installed with version numbers, use:

brew list --versions

To see just the software, which is not a dependency of another:

brew leaves

To keep the Homebrew itself up-to-date, and fetch the newest version from GitHub:

brew update

After updating the brew, check which formulae have an updated version available, display detailed version information to see if you have more than one older version laying around:

brew outdated --verbose

See any app that you no longer need and want to get rid of them? Check the dependencies for all installed formulae:

brew deps --installed

For even more detailed picture, show the dependencies for all installed formulae as a tree:

brew deps --installed --tree

As a final precaution before removing a formula, see what other installed formulae use it as a dependency:

brew uses --installed formula

Uninstall formulae and all their older versions:

brew remove --force formulae

Upgrade remaining formulae:

brew upgrade

Show what will be removed by cleanup command, but do not actually remove anything:

brew cleanup -ns

Clean the "Cellar" removing any older versions of installed formulae and clearing old downloads from the Homebrew download-cache. Additionally, scrub the cache, removing downloads for even the latest versions of formula, which are downloaded, but not installed:

brew cleanup -s

brew info [formula]