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Homebrew nicely allows package installations without sudo privileges, but it seems that I need admin privileges to install Homebrew itself.

I'd like to install Homebrew in a Mac environment where I don't have sudo or admin privileges. Is this possible?

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7 Answers 7

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113

In case somebody is still looking for this in 2020 and beyond, yes, this is possible without root privileges:

mkdir homebrew && curl -L https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master | tar xz --strip 1 -C homebrew

The above allows you to install homebrew anywhere. Make sure that you add homebrew/bin to your $PATH.

More information about this alternative installation method is available in Brew's installation instructions.

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  • 4
    Maybe this should be the top answer?
    – Devin Rhode
    Commented Dec 14, 2020 at 1:58
  • 2
    After settings, a brew update is most likely necessary to ensure freshness. I would also recommend this one---it just works.
    – Eric Platon
    Commented Jan 5, 2021 at 2:27
  • I tried this, it works very well, simple & quick. Thanks
    – Premier
    Commented Feb 5, 2021 at 8:31
  • Looks like people are having more success with this answer and appears to be a new way to solve the problem, so I accepted it
    – BenjaminGolder
    Commented Apr 8, 2021 at 16:16
  • 1
    Worked great on mac os ventura on apple silicon M2.
    – user674669
    Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 14:23
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Yes.

I modified the install script to not use sudo and to use a directory of your choice. https://gist.github.com/skyl/36563a5be809e54dc139

Download that, set YOUR_HOME in the script to the absolute path. chmod +x the script. Create the YOUR_HOME/usr/local directory. Then, execute the script.

./install.rb

In .bash_profile, I set (I'm not positive this is important, pretty sure):

export HOMEBREW_PREFIX=/The/path/to/YOUR_HOME/usr/local

Now, I can:

brew install wget

Make sure the bin directory, YOUR_HOME + /usr/local/bin is on your $PATH.

which wget
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  • 2
    In the install script I had to add #{YOUR_HOME} prefix to the HOMEBREW_CACHE variable as well. That, and because the system admin already had homebrew installed, I had to add export PATH=/path/to/home/usr/local/bin:$PATH to .bash_profile as well. But with all that, it seems to work great.
    – golmschenk
    Commented Jun 26, 2015 at 19:31
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    Just went through the process again, and I just wanted to mention you also have to make a usr directory in your home directory before the script will run. Additionally, when you add #{YOUR_HOME} to the HOMEBREW_CACHE variable, it seems you need to change the single quotes to double quotes for it to work. So there are a few steps, but it's definitely worth it to get the power of Homebrew.
    – golmschenk
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 17:01
  • @golmschenk double quotes are required for ruby's string formatting to kick in, I believe.
    – Skylar Saveland
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 20:14
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    That's a nice adjustment. You really ought to submit a pull request to the home-brew project.
    – David Hoelzer
    Commented Dec 5, 2015 at 19:48
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    I tried this from a non-admin account on macOS Sierra (10.12.3) and it didn't work because it needed to do a chgrp admin /usr/local, and a non-admin account isn't a member of the admin group, so it can't change anything to that group. It would be great if this could be made to work for a normal non-admin account (not just for admin accounts that have for some strange reason been locked out of sudo).
    – Spiff
    Commented Feb 6, 2017 at 18:13
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No.. Unless you do significant surgery.

The reason is that Homebrew strongly insists on installing packages into /usr/local. In fact, even if you forced it to install somewhere else, you are likely to break dependencies when you use brew install to install packages. Most if not all of these packages are pre-compiled and linked expecting to live in /usr/local.

The reason for this insistence is that /usr/local is precisely where POSIX recommends that stuff like this gets installed. In order to create /usr/local Homebrew needs temporary admin credentials to create the directory and assign ownership.

This, in turn, is what allows you to install anything else without elevating credentials.

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  • Thanks, but I think you missed my question. I know how & where it installs packages, but I want to install Homebrew without admin or sudo.
    – BenjaminGolder
    Commented Jul 14, 2013 at 1:17
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    I didn't miss your question. The answer was "No".. I just said "Yes" accidentally. You cannot easily do what you are asking and even if you forced it by editing the Homebrew installer to put things into a branch off of your home directory, more than likely lots of brews would fail after installation.
    – David Hoelzer
    Commented Jul 14, 2013 at 1:18
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    This is just wrong, or at least you definition of "significant surgery" is very different then mine. I've been running brew with a prefix set to my home directory for 5 plus years and I've encounter 1 or 2 broken packages in that time.
    – James McMahon
    Commented Sep 12, 2017 at 2:22
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    However, also there is also this, which is hard to get around: Error: You have not agreed to the Xcode license. Please resolve this by running: sudo xcodebuild -license accept
    – Albert
    Commented Jan 16, 2019 at 17:47
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    @Albert I was recently checking the git version installed by default on mojave, I literally just typed "git" and hit enter, and I was able to get a prompt to install xcode cli tools, seems to have worked fine without admin privileges. (10.14.6)
    – Devin Rhode
    Commented Sep 26, 2020 at 1:30
2

To install homebrew without sudo.

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

Restart terminal and run

brew --version
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  • This still requires sudo access
    – WilliamK
    Commented Mar 26, 2020 at 1:58
1

Brew moved their git repo

git clone [email protected]:Homebrew/brew.git
echo 'export PATH="/path/to/cloned_folder/homebrew/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
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    By 'the above' do you mean Astik Anand's answer? It won't always be 'above' your answer. If something in their answer should be changed, edit it yourself.
    – nekomatic
    Commented Sep 12, 2019 at 14:36
  • Permission was denied
    – WilliamK
    Commented Mar 26, 2020 at 3:20
  • @pwaterz I have edited the other answer - would you want to delete this to clean things up?
    – Devin Rhode
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 14:47
  • No, because I don't credit for the answer then
    – pwaterz
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 16:21
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Yes.

The brew system appears bootstrappable and can be installed in one own's home directory. According to a comment by @Adrian, this will take much longer because each package will be built from its source code.

#!/bin/bash
set -ex

export HOMEBREW_PREFIX=~/homebrew
# export HOMEBREW_NO_ANALYTICS=1
mkdir -p "${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}"
curl -fsSLk https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/tarball/master | tar xz --strip 1 -C "${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}"

ls -laR "${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}"

export PATH="${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/bin:${PATH}"
type -a brew

type -a openssl || :
openssl version -a || :

type -a curl || :
curl -V || :

# Fails to lock a .git/config file.
##brew analytics off

# No "brew update" until installing the proper openssl and a curl that uses it.
# brew update

# brew remove openssl || :
brew install openssl
brew link --force openssl

# brew remove curl || :
brew install --with-openssl curl
brew link --force curl || :
curl -V

ls -la "${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/opt"
ls -la "${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/bin"
ls -laLR "${HOMEBREW_PREFIX}/opt/curl/"
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  • like 10x less code than the ruby version... but partly ruby has to deal with a lot of ceremony by not being a bash script.. @eel have you run into any issues with this installation?
    – Devin Rhode
    Commented Sep 26, 2020 at 2:56
  • I used this script only to get my homebrew going. (A brew upgrade needs a trick with brew update-reset. gist.github.com/ilatypov/f197cd65941063e2df828122c7de0c52 ).
    – eel ghEEz
    Commented Sep 26, 2020 at 4:08
  • What do you mean "only get my homebrew going"? Are you able to get a successful homebrew setup going with this script? Install command line things like git, zsh, etc? I ended up using a tweaked version of Skyl's ruby script above, but, I am curious if this would have worked too.
    – Devin Rhode
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 2:42
  • Wow brew install openssl is painfully slow on my MBP :(
    – Devin Rhode
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 2:56
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    @DevinGRhode All core Homebrew formulae no longer support options like --with-openssl. Also, if you install Homebrew outside the official root, all your installs are likely to build from source, rather than using prebuilt binaries, so yeah, it'll be painfully slow.
    – Adrian
    Commented Sep 28, 2020 at 13:50
0

The following script shows a way to install brew without root. Please do export environment variables HOMEBREW_PREFIX & PATH in your ~/.zshrc after installation to ensure the package will placed at a expected directory

download

cd ~
git clone https://github.com/Homebrew/brew homebrew
mkdir ~/usr/local
# installed packaged directory
echo "export HOMEBREW_PREFIX=~/usr/local" >> ~/.zshrc
echo "export PATH=$PATH:~/homebrew/bin:HOMEBREW_PREFIX/bin" >> ~/.zshrc

update brew

brew update
# if error
brew update-reset
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    – Community Bot
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 15:42

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