01
Your apps
Every app you've installed with Homebrew, with its real icon. Click to open it. Hover or right-click to update it, show it in Finder or uninstall it.
BrewDock for Mac
Homebrew in
your menu bar
Browse, install, update and tidy up your Mac apps and tools without opening the Terminal. A native home for the package manager you already use.
For Mac · macOS 13 or later · Needs Homebrew · Open source
What it does
Everything Homebrew,
one click away
Click the mug in your menu bar, or press ⌥⌘B from any app. Everything you'd normally type into Terminal is right there.
02
Your tools
The command-line tools you chose come first. The libraries Homebrew added for you are folded away underneath. Click a tool to open it in Terminal or iTerm2.
03
Stay up to date
BrewDock checks every few hours. An orange dot means updates are waiting. Update one, or everything at once, with live progress. Optional alerts tell you when new versions land. Or turn on Auto-update, and BrewDock updates all your apps and tools every 10 minutes on its own.
04
Discover
Over 230 hand-picked apps and tools in ten categories, from browsers to databases, with my other Mac apps at the top. You can also search all of Homebrew. One click installs.
05
Services
Start, stop and restart Homebrew services like PostgreSQL, Redis and nginx, and see at a glance what's running.
And the little things
Thoughtful touches
The jobs you'd otherwise look up the command for, each one click away.
Brewfile
Back up your setup, restore it on a new Mac, see what's missing, or remove anything not on the list.
Free up space
See how much room old versions and cached downloads take, and clear them in one click.
Don't update
Hold a package at its current version. Tools use brew pin, so Terminal respects it too.
Self-updating apps
Optionally include apps like Chrome and Slack, which Homebrew normally skips.
Keyboard first
Press ⌥⌘B from any app and start typing to search. Esc closes it.
Ready for Homebrew 7
If Homebrew refuses a package from a tap you haven't trusted, BrewDock tells you which one, and asks before trusting it.
Take a look
Native, light
and dark
Built in SwiftUI, with no Electron. It follows your Mac's light or dark mode, works with VoiceOver, and has a small mug who waves hello.
Private by design
Your Mac.
Your packages.
Runs on your Mac
BrewDock runs the brew command you already have. Homebrew does all the downloading, just as it does in Terminal.
No account
No sign-up, no email address, no passwords. Install it and click the mug.
No tracking
No analytics and nothing collected. Discover's app icons ship with BrewDock, so browsing it makes no network requests.
Download & install
BrewDock is free. It installs with Homebrew, a free and widely used tool for installing Mac apps and keeping them up to date. You only need to set it up once.
-
Get Homebrew. Download the installer, open it and click through, like any Mac installer. It asks for your Mac password. Already have Homebrew? Skip to step 2.
Download Homebrew -
Open Terminal, an app that comes with every Mac. Press ⌘ Space, type Terminal and press Return. A window with a blinking cursor opens.
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Click Copy, paste into Terminal with ⌘ V and press Return. Text scrolls past while Homebrew installs BrewDock. It's done when it stops.
Install BrewDock$ brew tap RossNicholson/tap$ brew trust --cask rossnicholson/tap/brewdock$ brew install --cask brewdock
See command not found: brew? Quit Terminal with ⌘ Q, open it again and paste once more.
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Open BrewDock from your Applications folder. If your Mac asks whether you're sure you want to open it, click Open. Then click the mug in your menu bar.
What your Mac will ask
Your Mac checks with you before an app can do certain things. Here's what BrewDock asks for, and what to click.
- Notifications. Only if you turn on update alerts in Settings. Click Allow.
- Launch at login. If you turn it on in Settings, macOS shows a notice that a login item was added. That's expected.
On an older Homebrew, an error about brew trust is safe to ignore.
Get brewing
BrewDock is free, open source, and signed and notarized by Apple.
Enjoying it? Buy me a coffee ☕ · Need help? Support
Also from me: ClawdBar, Claude Code limits in your menu bar, and Mop Up, a free Mac cleaner