Never used Homebrew?

Then this page is for you. No prior Terminal experience assumed — and if you decide halfway through that you would rather not, the disk image gets you the same app without any of this.

What Homebrew actually is

An app store for the Terminal, run by volunteers, free, and the way most Mac developers install software. Instead of hunting down a download page, you type the name of the thing you want and Homebrew fetches it, checks it and puts it in the right place.

Its real advantage shows up later: one command updates everything you installed through it, GamepadBridge included. No app checking for its own updates, no download page to revisit.

You genuinely do not need it for GamepadBridge

The disk image installs exactly the same signed app. Homebrew is worth it if you expect to install more than one thing on this Mac — otherwise skip it with a clear conscience.

Installing it, step by step

Open Terminal

Press ⌘Space to open Spotlight, type Terminal, press Return. A window with a blinking cursor appears. That is all a terminal is: a place to type commands instead of clicking them.

How to run a command

Use the Copy button on each black box below, click into the Terminal window, paste with ⌘V, then press Return. The $ in the box is not part of the command — it just marks a line you type, and the Copy button leaves it out.

Run the official install command

This is the command from brew.sh, Homebrew's own site, copied word for word.

Install Homebrew

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Yes, this downloads a script and runs it

That is worth being uncomfortable about, and you should be — it is how a lot of malware gets installed. What makes it acceptable here is that the script comes from Homebrew's own repository over HTTPS, is read by a very large number of people, and is open for you to read before you run it. Take the command from brew.sh rather than trusting this page — that is the right instinct in general.

Type your password when it asks

Homebrew needs to create a folder outside your home directory, so macOS asks for your account password. Nothing appears as you type — not even dots. That is normal; type it and press Return.

It then installs Apple's Command Line Tools if they are missing, which is the slow part. A few minutes on a decent connection.

Do the Next steps it prints

When it finishes, Homebrew prints a short Next steps section with two lines to run. On Apple Silicon Macs they look like this. Run the ones it printed — if yours differ, yours are right.

Tell your shell where brew lives

echo >> ~/.zprofile

echo 'eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"' >> ~/.zprofile

eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Skipping this is the usual reason brew 'does not work'

Homebrew installs to /opt/homebrew on Apple Silicon, and your shell does not look there by default. Without these lines every brew command answers command not found, even though it installed perfectly.

Check that it worked

A version number means you are done.

Verify

brew --version

Homebrew 4.x.y

Still command not found?

Close the Terminal window and open a new one — the PATH lines only take effect in a fresh shell. If it still fails, run step 4 again and read the output carefully; it names the exact file it wrote to.

Homebrew is ready. Now install the app.

Back to the three commands — they will work now.

Continue installing GamepadBridge Homebrew documentation