How to Set Up Homebrew on macOS

Homebrew is the de-facto package manager on macOS — Apple ships none of its own. This guide installs Homebrew, explains the Apple-Silicon vs Intel path differences, configures it for shell completion, and shows the daily commands.

Prerequisites

• macOS 12 Monterey or newer.
• An admin account.
• Xcode Command Line Tools (the Homebrew installer triggers this automatically if missing).

Step 1: Install Homebrew

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

The installer prints a one-line shellenv snippet for your shell. Run the lines it prints, then add them to your shell profile so they persist:

For Apple Silicon (arm64) — Homebrew lives at /opt/homebrew:

echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zprofile
eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

For Intel — Homebrew lives at /usr/local:

echo 'eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zprofile
eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"

Step 2: Verify

brew --version
brew doctor

brew doctor lists any environment issues. Fix everything before installing real software.

Step 3: Daily commands

brew update                    # refresh formula list
brew upgrade                   # upgrade everything
brew upgrade git               # upgrade one thing
brew install ripgrep fd jq fzf # the standard dev toolkit
brew search redis              # search names
brew info redis
brew uninstall package-name
brew list                      # what's installed
brew leaves                    # top-level installs (not deps)
brew cleanup                   # reclaim disk

Step 4: Casks for GUI apps

brew install --cask iterm2 visual-studio-code rectangle docker
brew list --cask
brew upgrade --cask

Casks install into /Applications — same place a .dmg drag-and-drop would put them.

Step 5: Services

Homebrew installs background services (PostgreSQL, Redis, Nginx, etc.) without needing launchd plists:

brew install postgresql@16
brew services start postgresql@16
brew services list
brew services stop postgresql@16

Step 6: Brewfile for reproducible setups

Pin your machine's whole package set:

brew bundle dump --file=~/Brewfile
cat ~/Brewfile

# On a new machine:
brew bundle install --file=~/Brewfile

Check that file into a private dotfiles repo and provisioning a new Mac is brew bundle install away.

Verify

brew config           # full environment dump
brew analytics off    # opt out of anonymous stats
brew doctor

Conclusion

Homebrew + a Brewfile is the closest thing macOS has to apt/dnf. Run brew update && brew upgrade weekly and you stay current with no Microsoft-Store-style friction.

Next steps

• Set up SSH on macOS for remote access.
• Manage long-running daemons via launchd / launchctl.
• For shell tooling see Bash scripting fundamentals.