How to Install & Use the Homebrew GUI App on Mac
Homebrew now has an official MacOS GUI app for visual package management, offering a graphical alternative to the popular command line tool. The Homebrew GUI app makes it easy to install new packages, update existing packages and casks, manage packages, and find new Homebrew packages, and is a worthwhile addition for Mac users who use Homebrew anyway.
The Homebrew GUI app will obviously require you to have installed Homebrew already on the Mac. If you haven’t done that, or if you have no interest in Homebrew as a package manager or command line, this won’t be of particular relevance to you. But if you’re a Homebrew user, and you want to use the official Homebrew GUI app (as opposed to third party alternatives like Applite), here’s how to install it.
Installing Homebrew GUI App on Mac
- Assuming you already have Homebrew installed on your Mac, issue the following command:
- After installation has finished, you’ll find Homebrew.app in your /Applications folder. Launch that and you’ll be in a GUI version of the Homebrew package manager:
brew install --cask homebrew-app
You can manage your existing packages, update packages, and discover and install other packages too. Basically any management task you can do in the command line, you can do from the Homebrew app in the MacOS GUI.
To install a new cask or Homebrew package, go to the “Discover” tab, then use the search bar, or browse through the popular formula and casks.
You can uninstall casks and packages this way too.
If you like the official Homebrew app for Mac, you might also like some of the third party alternatives like Applite, which has a more traditional Mac-like interface.
