List Installed Homebrew Packages with brew list
Show every formula and cask Homebrew has installed, and find the files a package owns.
Run brew list to see installed formulae, brew list --cask for GUI apps, and brew list wget to see a package's files.
01Command
Command
$ brew list # formulae only: brew list --formula | casks: brew list --cask02What it does
brew list is the inventory command for Homebrew: with no arguments it prints every installed formula, while --cask narrows to GUI applications. Passing a package name turns it into a file listing, showing exactly which binaries and docs that package installed. This is the fastest way to recall what a Mac's toolchain includes or to find where a tool actually lives.
03Risk
!Warning: The plain output is a long undifferentiated list — pipe through grep -i <name> when searching for one package. brew list shows what is installed, not what is outdated (that's brew outdated).
04Undo
✓No undo needed — this command does not change persistent state.
05Sources
- Homebrew Documentation: brew(1) manualEvidence: Documents brew list with --formula and --cask for enumerating installed packages.
Last verified: 2026-09-18 · Category: Developer