Migrating Your Homebrew Setup to a New Mac with One Command

8th November 2025 • 1 min read — by Aleksandar Trpkovski

How to Backup and Restore Homebrew Packages on macOS

Setting up a new Mac can be exciting - but reinstalling all your tools, libraries, and apps? Not so much. If you use Homebrew, there’s a super clean way to transfer everything from your old Mac to your new one using a single file.

In this guide, I’ll show you how to export everything installed via Homebrew, and then import it onto your new machine.

What Is Homebrew?

For the uninitiated, Homebrew is the go-to package manager for macOS. Developers use it to install and manage tools like Node.js, Python, Git, Docker, and even GUI apps like Google Chrome or VSCode. You can read more here.

📤 Exporting Your Homebrew Setup (Old Mac)

Homebrew has a built-in command called brew bundle. This lets you export your entire setup into a file called Brewfile.

Run this on your old Mac:

brew bundle dump --file=~/Brewfile --describe

• --file=~/Brewfile saves the list to your home directory.
• —-describe adds comments to explain what each package does.
• This includes:
  • brew packages (CLI tools)
  • cask apps (GUI apps like Chrome)
  • tap sources

The output of the Brewfile looks something like this:

# Fast, disk space efficient package manager
brew "pnpm"
# Python package management tool
brew "poetry"
# Object-relational database system
brew "postgresql@14"
# Python version management
brew "pyenv"
# Password manager that keeps all passwords secure behind one password
cask "1password"
# Universal database tool and SQL client
cask "dbeaver-community"
# Voice and text chat software
cask "discord"
# App to build and share containerised applications and microservices
cask "docker-desktop"

📥 Importing on Your New Mac

After setting up your new Mac:

1. Install Homebrew first - https://brew.sh
2. Transfer your Brewfile Copy your Brewfile to your new Mac
3. Install everything from the Brewfile:

brew bundle --file=~/Brewfile

Homebrew will read the file and install everything it finds - bringing your dev environment back to life in minutes.

Conclusion

Reinstalling every package and app manually can take hours. But with the magic of brew bundle, your transition to a new machine is painless. Whether you’re upgrading your MacBook or setting up a secondary work machine, having a Brewfile in your backup is a huge time-saver.

So next time you run brew install, think of it as an investment in your future self.

I've put together a table with the two commands you'll need for this entire migration process.