How to uninstall Homebrew on a Mac, with a dry run first

How do I uninstall Homebrew on a Mac?

Run Homebrew's own uninstall script from Terminal. Run it once with --dry-run first, which lists what it would remove and removes nothing:

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/uninstall.sh
/bin/bash uninstall.sh --dry-run

Read the list. When you are ready, run /bin/bash uninstall.sh without --dry-run. The script also has --skip-cache-and-logs to leave the download cache in place, and --path for a Homebrew installed somewhere other than the default.

What gets removed when you uninstall Homebrew?

Everything under Homebrew's folder, which is every tool you installed with brew. On our Mac that meant:

Three Pythons, a second Node, OpenSSH and ollama on our Mac all came from Homebrew. Anything a project or script runs through /opt/homebrew/bin stops working.

Does uninstalling Homebrew remove apps installed with --cask?

No, and this surprises people. We read the uninstall script: it removes Homebrew's own folders, including the Caskroom where it records casks, but in Applications it only removes items that link back into Homebrew's Cellar. Cask apps are real copies, so Visual Studio Code, Alfred and the rest stay in Applications. So did our Java, which the zulu@17 cask installed into /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines. What changes is that nothing updates them any more. To remove a cask app properly, run brew uninstall --cask <name> for it before you uninstall Homebrew.

What should I check before uninstalling Homebrew?

1. List what you have: brew list --formula and brew list --cask. Save the output, or run brew bundle dump to write a Brewfile you can reinstall from later with brew bundle.
2. Look for things you rely on. Check which -a python3 node java git to see which of your tools resolve to /opt/homebrew.
3. Decide about the apps. Cask apps such as Visual Studio Code or Alfred stay after Homebrew goes, without updates. Uninstall the ones you do not want with brew uninstall --cask while Homebrew is still there, and reinstall the ones you keep from their own sites so they update themselves.

Does uninstalling Homebrew remove Xcode Command Line Tools?

No. The Command Line Tools are Apple's, in /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools, and the uninstall script leaves them alone. Apple's git and python3 in /usr/bin keep working afterwards.

Do I need to uninstall Homebrew to free space?

Usually not. brew cleanup removes old versions and the download cache, and brew autoremove removes tools nothing needs any more. See what Homebrew's packages cost and the leftovers casks leave behind.