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Brew

https://docs.brew.sh/FAQ

https://docs.brew.sh/Manpage

Terminology: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Formula-Cookbook.md#homebrew-terminology

Search formulas: https://formulae.brew.sh

Help: man brew or brew help <command>

Upgrade:

brew update --debug --verbose
brew outdated
brew upgrade
brew cleanup

Stop certain formulae from being updated: brew pin <formula>. To allow that formulae to update again do: brew unpin <formula>.

Install: brew install git

Uninstall: brew uninstall git

Uninstall formulae that were only installed as a dependency of another formula and are now no longer needed: brew autoremove. Use brew autoremove --dry-run to list what would be uninstalled, but do not actually uninstall anything.

List installed:

brew list
brew list --installed-on-request
brew list --installed-as-dependency

List top-level formulas (ie formulas that no other formulas depend on): brew leaves. If you do brew help leaves it says "List installed formulae that are not dependencies of another installed formula or cask."

List dependencies of formula source: brew deps --tree --installed vim

Some of the formulae given by brew list --installed-on-request cannot be uninstalled, since they are dependencies of other formulae (you get the error "Refusing to uninstall /usr/local/Cellar/xz/5.6.3 because it is required by ..." when doing brew uninstall xz). To list the formulae that I installed which are also top level formula (and thus can be uninstalled) do:

brew list --installed-on-request > brew-list-installed-on-request.txt
brew leaves > brew-leaves.txt
awk 'NR==FNR{arr[$0];next} $0 in arr' brew-list-installed-on-request.txt brew-leaves.txt
rm brew-list-installed-on-request.txt
rm brew-leaves.txt

source of the awk command

Doctor: brew doctor ← check from time to time!

Get the size of the installed formulae source:

brew list --formula | xargs -n1 -P8 -I {} \
    sh -c "brew info {} | egrep '[0-9]* files, ' | sed 's/^.*[0-9]* files, \(.*\)).*$/{} \1/'" | \
    sort -h -r -k2 - | column -t

Cask​

List of commands: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/master/USAGE.md

brew install <package>
brew uninstall <package>
brew list --cask
brew outdated --cask
brew upgrade --cask

Services​

brew services start postgresql
brew services stop postgresql
brew services restart postgresql
brew services list

If you uninstall the postgresql then you can remove its links with brew services cleanup. source

All commands:

  • cleanup: Get rid of stale services and unused plists
  • list: List all services managed by brew services
  • restart: Gracefully restart selected service
  • run: Run selected service. Don't start at login (nor boot)
  • start: Start selected service
  • stop: Stop selected service

You can find the commands in /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-services/completions/zsh/_brew_services.

yarn issues​

info

This should not be necessary anymore since I've unistalled yarn from Brew and installed it with npm (npm install --global yarn) as recommend at the docs ("It is recommended to install Yarn through the npm package manager").

Fix zsh: command not found: yarn​

Run brew doctor. If you see:

Warning: You have unlinked kegs in your Cellar.
Leaving kegs unlinked can lead to build-trouble and cause brews that depend on
those kegs to fail to run properly once built. Run `brew link` on these:
  yarn

Then run brew link yarn, which may fix the issue. If you then get Error: Could not symlink bin/yarn. Target /usr/local/bin/yarn already exists., then follow the instructions or run brew link --overwrite yarn.

Fix not using the latest yarn version installed by brew​

If brew info yarn gives a different (higher) version than yarn -v then run brew link --overwrite yarn. If you then see:

Warning: Already linked: /usr/local/Cellar/yarn/1.22.4
To relink:
  brew unlink yarn && brew link yarn

Then run brew unlink yarn && brew link yarn. If you then see Error: Could not symlink bin/yarn. Target /usr/local/bin/yarn already exists., then follow the instructions or run brew link --overwrite yarn.