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James Murdza
James Murdza

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Ultimate Homebrew Cheatsheet 🍺

#homebrew #macos #brew #install

Below is my reference of useful commands for package management in Homebrew:

👀 Quick stats

Show Homebrew state:

brew info
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Show manually installed taps, kegs and packages in one list:

brew bundle dump --file=-
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📦 Manage packages and dependencies

See installed packages

List installed packages:

brew list # formulae and casks
brew list --formulae # just formulae
brew list --casks # just casks
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List installed packages which are not dependencies of any others:

brew leaves
brew leaves -r # installed manually
brew leaves -p # installed as dependencies
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List installed packages which are not dependencies of manually installed packages:

brew autoremove --dry-run
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See dependency tree

Show dependencies of the wget formula in a tree format:

brew deps --tree wget
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Show all installed formulae in a dependency tree format:

brew deps --tree --installed
brew deps --tree $(brew leaves) # remove duplicate showing of same dependency
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Show dependency tree for all casks:

brew deps --tree $(brew list --casks -1)
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Remove hanging dependencies

Uninstall hanging (no longer used) dependencies:

brew autoremove
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Remove all packages

Remove all packages installed with Homebrew:

brew remove --force $(brew list) --ignore-dependencies
brew remove --force $(brew list --formulae) --ignore-dependencies # formulae only
brew remove --force $(brew list --casks) --ignore-dependencies # casks only
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🗄️ Manage files

Installation paths

Show key installation directories:

brew shellenv
brew --prefix
brew --repository
brew --cellar
brew --caskroom
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See installed files

Show files in the wget keg:

brew list wget # collapse directories
brew list wget --verbose # recurse directories
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Show symlinks to the wget keg:

unlink wget --dry-run
unlink wget --dry-run | xargs ls -l # show link destinations
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Show unneeded files:

brew cleanup --dry-run # old versions of packages
brew cleanup -s --dry-run # old versions of packages and cache files
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Remove unneeded files

Remove old versions of packages and cache files:

brew cleanup -s
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Completely erase the Homebrew cache folder:

rm -rf $(brew --cache)
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