How to Find New Homebrew Packages
Homebrew contains thousands of packages, but the newest additions can be difficult to notice. These methods help you search deliberately, inspect a package before installing it, and keep up with newly merged software.
Search formulae and casks together
The brew search command performs a substring search across formula names and cask tokens. Search is extended online to Homebrew’s core and cask repositories, so it is the fastest starting point when you know part of a package’s name.
brew search <text>Inspect a package before installing
Use brew info to see a package’s description, version, homepage, dependencies, installation status, and other available metadata. This is especially useful when similarly named formulae and casks appear in search results.
brew info <package-name>Browse the official catalog
The Homebrew Formulae site provides browsable formula and cask pages backed by Homebrew’s documented JSON API. Package pages include install commands and current metadata without requiring a local Homebrew installation.
- Browse formulae for command-line tools, libraries, runtimes, and services.
- Browse casks for applications, fonts, plugins, and other pre-built software.
- Follow the package homepage when you need release notes or upstream documentation.
Watch newly merged additions
New packages enter Homebrew through reviewed pull requests in homebrew/core and homebrew/cask. Brewlert follows the merged pull requests labeled new formula and new cask, enriches them with package metadata, and collects them into one Sunday issue.
The weekly archive gives each issue a permanent URL, so you can revisit a particular week instead of relying on a constantly changing package list.