How to install homebrew packages locally

Question

I got homebrew installed, however I do not have admin access. How do I install homebrew packages without admin access? Is there a local tag or something that I keep missing?

Patsy

Answer 1

Homebrew needs /usr/local to be chown-ed to your user, and you need sudo for that. If you can’t you have to install it elsewhere. Some people use ~/.brew or ~/homebrew; you can use anything but avoid paths with spaces. See the docs here.

Let’s say you want to install in ~/.brew; run the following command:

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/Homebrew/brew ~/.brew

Then ensure the bin and sbin directories are in your PATH. If you’re using Bash add the following in your ~/.bash_profile:

export PATH="$HOME/.brew/bin:$HOME/.brew/sbin:$PATH"

Run source ~/.bash_profile or restart your shell and run brew doctor to see if it’s installed correctly. It should warn you it’s not installed into /usr/local but that’s expected here.

Perspire

I just want to add that, to make this work I had to run brew update first! – Bromidic

We ran this when the current version of brew was 2.1.4. These instructions yielded brew v1.7.x, which we easily brew upgraded immediately. No sudo required! We did have to manually add the location of brew to the PATH, which is not mentioned). – Lovell

Currently, the docs provided for homebrew (legacy) is now outdated. (last commit) See the new updated link (commit) – Horst

Answer 2

To install homebrew without sudo.

git clone https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew.git
echo 'export PATH="/path/to/cloned_folder/homebrew/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Update the /path/to/cloned_folder with the path of the homebrew cloned folder.

Restart terminal and run

brew update
brew --version

Cohbath

Agreeing to the Xcode/iOS license requires admin privileges, please re-run as root via sudo. – Semitone

But running OSX as the root user gets things moving, such as viewing and agreeing to the software licence. – Semitone

What should I use for "/path/to/cloned_folder"? – Semitone

@WilliamK, folder path is where you have done the git clone of hombrew. I mean that much you have think from your side. – Cohbath

Answer 3

 git clone https://github.com/Homebrew/brew

 pwd

 echo 'export PATH="*RESULT_OF_PWD*/brew/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Multicolor

Answer 4

if it's for programming/building purposes you could also is easy to download the formula, extract the download url, and unzip it in your prefix (is your local folder): it's json https://formulae.brew.sh/api/formula/gtk+3.json

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