How to uninstall homebrew? (OSX Package Manager)

Question

I've got some problems with this package manager, I can't find how to remove it!

Is it safe to remove whole /usr/local ?? Homebrew was installed somewhere in that direction..

Answer 1

Here's how they recommend doing it:

cd `brew --prefix`
rm -rf Cellar
brew prune
rm -rf Library .git .gitignore bin/brew README.md share/man/man1/brew
rm -rf ~/Library/Caches/Homebrew

This should also revert your /usr/local folder to its pre-Homebrew days. See the Homebrew installation wiki for more information.

Answer 2

Also note that homebrew changes group to 'staff' and gives write access to group for

• /usr/local
• /usr/local/bin
• /usr/local/include
• /usr/local/lib
• /usr/local/sbin
• /usr/local/share

In order to put back these directories in their original states do:

sudo chown root:wheel <directory> ; sudo chmod 755 <directory>

for each one or if you don't have fancy owners / rights:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /usr/local ; sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/local

Answer 3

There might be other files in /usr/local you might need you might be able to user a different PM to remove the current PM.