Mac

Have you ever wondered where Homebrew puts the binaries from brew packages that are installed on a Mac? If you’re a Homebrew user, you may be interested in knowing where Homebrew puts everything and where to find the installed brew packages in Mac OS.

We’ll show you the directory path where Homebrew keeps packages, and also share a few other ways to see what and where Homebrew has installed anything onto a Mac.

This is obviously aimed at more advanced Mac users who rely on the command line and Homebrew, and this won’t be applicable to anyone else. If you’re interested in installing Homebrew you can learn about that here.

Where Homebrew Packages Are Installed on Mac OS: the Homebrew Installation Path

By default, Homebrew will install all packages into the following directory in all versions of Mac OS:

/usr/local/Cellar/

Additionally, Homebrew places symlinks into the following directory path:

/usr/local/opt/

The symbolic links of binaries found in /usr/local/opt/ all point to their respective package in /usr/local/Cellar/ as can be confirmed with ls and the -l flag:

ls -l /usr/local/opt/

The screenshot example demonstrates the symbolic links pointing from /usr/local/opt/ to /usr/local/Cellar/ for each individual brew package:

Thus you can use the ls command to list all Homebrew packages installed on a Mac simply by showing the full directory listing:

ls /usr/local/Cellar

How to Find Specific Homebrew Package Installation Information

Now that you know where Homebrew generally stores packages, you can also learn more specifics about particular packages. We’ll show you a few commands to print the exact path of a specific brew package, and also show you how to get additional detailed information about particular Homebrew packages installed on the Mac.

How to Find Exactly Where a Homebrew Package is Installed

If you want the exact path to where a Homebrew package is installed reported back to you via command line, the simplest method is to use the –prefix flag and point it at a particular Homebrew package on the Mac, this will reveal the location where it is installed:

brew --prefix [package]

For example, using the package ‘wget’ we can get the following information immediately:

$ brew --prefix wget
/usr/local/opt/wget

As you can see in the command output, only the installation path for that Homebrew package is shown.

How to Get Detailed Homebrew Package Information

If you’re interested in getting more detailed information about a specific Homebrew package that has been installed, including where the Homebrew package came from, what it is, when it was installed, the path where the brew package is installed, as well as information about that packages dependencies and what other packages are required to use it. This is achieved by using the ‘info’ flag with brew to point it at a specific package, using the following syntax:

brew info [package]

For example, if you wanted to get information about the Homebrew package “wget” then you would issue the following command:

brew info wget

Hitting return will detail information about the brew package. Example output of such a command for ‘wget’ may look like the following:

$ brew info wget
wget: stable 1.19.5 (bottled), HEAD
Internet file retriever
https://www.gnu.org/software/wget/
/usr/local/Cellar/wget/1.19.4_1 (50 files, 3.8MB) *
Poured from bottle on 2018-05-07 at 10:59:31
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core/blob/master/Formula/wget.rb
==> Dependencies
Build: pkg-config
Required: libidn2, openssl
Optional: pcre libmetalink gpgme
==> Options
--with-debug
Build with debug support

The ‘brew info’ command obviously reveals significantly more information than simply the installation path of the package, so if you simply want the exact path of an installed brew package the –prefix command may be easier for scripting or other purposes. Nonetheless the full ‘brew info’ command output is incredibly useful to get extensive information about any installed package and it has obvious value for that reason, in addition to showing where something is installed.

Try these commands yourself with any Homebrew package. If you followed our prior articles about installing Homebrew on the Mac and then checked out some of the popular Homebrew packages available, or perhaps updated to Python 3 or installed node.js and npm through Homebrew, these tips will work to show you the installation path of those packages, as well as other noteworthy package information.

Do you have interesting advice or information to share on finding where Homebrew installs packages onto a Mac, or retrieving package details? Share with us in the comments below!

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By default, the Safari web browser for Mac will download any files to the Downloads folder of the active user account. Most Mac users will likely be satisfied with that, but some may wish to change the file download directory in Safari for Mac OS to another directory. Likewise, if you have changed the Safari download destination, you may wish to revert back to the default download folder for Safari on the Mac.

This tutorial will show you how to change the Safari downloads location in Mac OS. You can change it to any directory or folder you have access to, or you can revert back to the default Safari downloads destination of the user Downloads directory.

Making this adjustment will change where all downloaded files from the Safari web browser go to on the Mac. It will not impact other applications and where they download files.

How to Change the File Download Location in Safari on Mac

1. Open the “Safari” web browser on the Mac if you have not done so already
2. Pull down the “Safari” menu and choose “Preferences”



3. Go to the “General” tab and then look for the “File Download Location” section and click on the Downloads dropdown menu



4. Choose “Other” to change the downloads destination in Safari



5. Navigate to the directory you want Safari to download files to and choose “Select”



6. Exit out of Safari Preferences when finished

Now all future downloaded files or items from Safari will go to the folder or directory you selected. For example, if you selected the Desktop, then all Safari downloaded files will appear on the desktop of the Mac.

Changing the download destination for Safari only applies to downloads and files going forward, any files downloads before this change was made would appear in the location set prior to any adjustment. If you aren’t sure where a particular file downloaded from Safari is located, you can search on the Mac with Spotlight for the file name, click the magnifying glass button in the Safari Downloaded Items List, or manually investigate the user Downloads folder or whatever you had/have selected as the Safari download location.

How to Change Back to the the Default Download Location in Safari on Mac OS

If you had previously customized the location of the Download directory away from the default (~/Downloads) and to another directory, you can change it back as follows:

1. From the Safari browser, go to the “Safari” menu and choose “Preferences”
2. From the “General” tab look for the “File Download Location” section, and then click on the Downloads dropdown menu and choose “Downloads”

• If “Downloads” is not in the dropdown menu, choose “Other” and navigate to your user Home folder then select the “Downloads” from from there
• Exit out of Safari Preferences when finished

That’s it, now the Safari downloaded file destination directory will be reset to default ~/Downloads folder on the Mac.

Most users are better off keeping all downloads in the Downloads folder of Mac OS for consistency sake, because it makes keeping track of downloaded files particularly easy if all apps are downloading all files into the same location. By default, most Mac apps that are able to download files will use the user Downloads folder as the destination for those files, including Safari, Chrome, Firefox, most SFTP apps, and even file transfer features like AirDrop saves files to the Downloads folder by default on MacOS.

Of course this applies to Safari, which also happens to be the default web browser on a Mac, but if you use a different web browser then changing the default download location would be different. You can learn how to change the Chrome downloads folder here, for example.

And in case you were wondering, yes this guide applies to both regular Safari, Safari Beta, as well as the Safari Technology Preview builds. The download settings will be similar but slightly different if you happen to be running Safari on Windows PC but since that Windows-specific software build is no longer actively developed it’s usage is debatably more limited.

Do you have any tips, tricks, suggestions, or thoughts about adjusting where Safari downloads files to on the Mac? Share your experiences or opinions in the comments below!

Related

Node JS is the popular Javascript runtime environment that is widely used by many developers, and npm is the accompany package manager for the Node.js environment and Javascript. When you install Node.js, you will find npm is installed as well, thus if you want npm you need to install NodeJS.

There are several ways to install Node.js and NPM on the Mac, including using a prebuilt packaged installer, or by using Homebrew. This tutorial will cover both, and either approach should work find on any modern version of MacOS system software.

How to Install Node.js and npm on Mac OS with Homebrew

The easiest way to install node.js and npm is with the Homebrew package manager, which means first you will need to install Homebrew on the Mac first if you have not done so already. It’s always a good idea to update Homebrew before installing a Homebrew package, so run the following command to do that:

brew update

Assuming you already have Homebrew on the Mac, then you can run the following command into the Terminal application to install both Node.js and npm:

brew install node

Installing NodeJS / NPM via Homebrew is arguably easier than using any other method, and it also makes it simple to keep node.js and npm updated. It also has the added benefit of making it relatively simple to uninstall down the road if you decide you no longer need it.

Installing Node.js & NPM on the Mac with a package installer

If you don’t want to use Homebrew for whatever reason, the other next easiest option is to use a the prebuilt installer from nodejs.org:

You can run the installer like any other installation package on the Mac.

How to Check if NPM and Node.js are installed on a Mac

After you have installed node.js with npm, you can confirm that the two are installed by issuing either command with a -v flag to check the version:

node -v

and

npm -v

How to Test that Node.js is Working

Once the node.js package is installed on the Mac you can test it’s working by starting a simple web server. Create a file named “app.js” that contains the following code syntax:

const http = require(‘http’);

const hostname = ‘127.0.0.1’;
const port = 3000;

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
res.statusCode = 200;
res.setHeader(‘Content-Type’, ‘text/plain’);
res.end(‘Hello from NodeJSn’);
});

server.listen(port, hostname, () => {
console.log(`Server running at http://${hostname}:${port}/`);
});

Save that app.js file to the current directory, then you can start the web server with the following command:

node app.js

Then launch a web browser (your default or otherwise) and go to the following URL:

http://localhost:3000

You should see a message stating “Hello from Node.js”.

That simple node.js web server is sort of like the python instant web server except of course it’s using node rather than python. Speaking of Python, if you’re installing Node.js and NPM you may also be interested in instilling the updated Python 3 on a Mac too.

You can also install and use Grunt CLI task runner to test node and npm, which can be installed through npm:

npm install -g grunt-cli

You can then run ‘grunt’ from the command line.

That should just about cover the basics of installing NodeJS and npm on a Mac. If you have any other tips, tricks, suggestions, or advice, feel free to share them in the comments below.

Related

Do you have an older Mac that you still use? Or maybe an older retro Mac is sitting in a closet that you’d like to dust off and get some use out of? Maybe it’s a PowerBook that is running Snow Leopard, an original iMac with Tiger, an older Macintosh LC 475 with System 7.0.1, a Quadra 800 with Mac OS 9, or a Macintosh SE with System 6.

Whatever the older Macintosh computer is, to make it useful nowadays you’d likely want to find and download some old Mac software for it.

This post will aggregate a collection of links and resources for finding and downloading old Mac software, including old Mac system software, old Macintosh applications, and more, for everything from older Intel Macs, to PowerPC Macs, to 68040 and 030 Macs.

Where to Find & Download Old Mac OS Software

First, Apple offers many downloads of older software on their official Apple Support Downloads page. Of course this only includes Apple software, but if you’re looking for old versions of iMovie, Pages, Keynote, the iLife Suite, older Mac OS X system updates, firmware updates and security updates, older versions of iTunes and QuickTime, and similar Apple apps and software, it’s a great place to start.

The Apple Support Downloads page is most useful for finding software for more recent older Macs, particularly anything that is running a version of Mac OS X, even if it’s no longer a supported or updated system software release, like for Macs running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 or Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.5. If you’re looking to extend the life of such a Mac, the official Apple Support Downloads page can be quite useful and provide you with older versions of iTunes, Safari, iLife, and much more. Try looking there first, there’s a lot available! Just search for apps, system updates, and software packages by name.

Where to Find & Download Much Older Mac OS Software for Classic Mac OS, PowerPC, 040, etc

What about locating much older Mac OS software? Say, Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9 system software, or System 7.5.2 and System 7.6.1? And what about apps for those much older Mac OS Classic system software releases for older PowerPC, 68040, and 68030 processors? The following links may be helpful for that purpose, though keep in mind all of these are not officially supported by anyone, they are not sanctioned by Apple or any other developer, and most of the links are to what is considered abandonware software – meaning it’s old, no longer updated, or supported. But these type of resources are excellent for working with much older Macintosh computers, whether it’s an original Bondi Blue iMac, a G4 Cube, a Macintosh SE/30, Performa 6220, iBook, PowerBook 2400, or the whole array of pre-Intel Mac computers.

These links can also be helpful if you’re a retro emulator fan and you’re wanting to acquire a particular software package or library for local emulation, for example you can use Mini vMac emulator to run System 7 and have an entire old Mac system installation right on top of your existing modern MacOS, or you can use third party tools like Basilisk or SheepShaver for emulation on modern Macs too. But if you don’t want to commit to local emulation, you can also run Hypercard in retro Mac OS System in a web browser or run a web browser based Mac Plus emulator with Mac OS Classic too. There are many other fun retro computing possibilities out there to enjoy too.

One thing to keep in mind when downloading software packages for much older Macintosh computers and system software versions is that while the software itself is often tiny in size (remember when Photoshop was under 1 MB??), getting those software packages onto the older Macs can be a challenge. Often the simplest way is to start an FTP server on the Mac running a modern Mac OS X release and then using an FTP client like Fetch or Archie on the much older Mac to directly download the packages to the older computer. That would require some local networking however, but if the older Macintosh is directly connected to the internet already they could always just download the package files directly too. And of course the other option is to use physical media, whether it’s an SD card, CD / DVD, an external hard drive with an appropriate adapter, or floppy disks, that’s up to you.

Do you know of any other helpful resources for finding and downloading old Mac software? Share your own experiences, favorite links, and retro Mac software ideas and resources in the comments below!

Related

Have you ever wanted to recover deleted Safari history on a Mac? Maybe you unintentionally cleared all history and web data or deleted specific Safari history and you’d like to reverse those decisions and get the browsing history back? Or maybe you’re doing a little bit of investigative work for some reason or another, or you’d like to explore some simple digital forensics for Safari browser history on a Mac?

We’ll show you a simple way of recovering deleted Safari history on a Mac.

Since we’re aiming for a simple approach here, we’ll be relying on Time Machine, the backup service on Macs, which happens to offer the simplest way to recover deleted Safari history on a Mac – or recover any deleted file for that matter – though our focus here is on the Safari web browser. Thus, this approach obviously requires an accompanying Time Machine backup used by the particular Mac in question. If the Mac does not have a Time Machine backup setup and regular backups that are maintained, this simple history recovery approach will not work. Because this restores via a backup, any interim data between when that backup was made and when the restore happened will be lost, so keep that in mind before beginning this process, particular if the current browser history is also important – it’d be wise to back it up first too.

How to Recover Deleted Safari History on a Mac, the Easy Way

Assuming you have the Time Machine backup, here is how you can recover deleted Safari history on a Mac:

1. Quit out of Safari in Mac OS if you have not done so already
2. Connect the Time Machine backup drive to the Mac if it is not already connected
3. From the Finder, pull down the “Go” menu and choose “Go To Folder” and enter the following path:

~/Library/Safari/


4. Once you’re in the ~/Library/Safari directory, select the “History.db” file and then pull down the Time Machine menu in the upper-right corner and choose “Enter Time Machine”



5. Navigate and scroll through Time Machine history of the ~/Library/Safari/ directory, when you reach the desired date that contains the Safari history data you’d like to recover, click on the “Restore” button in Time Machine



6. When Time Machine finishes restoring the ~/Library/Safari/ directory, you’re now free to access the freshly recovered version of the deleted Safari history
7. Relaunch Safari on the Mac with the freshly restored History now intact
8. In Safari, pull down the “History” menu and choose “Show All History”



9. You can now browse, search, and find specific Safari history from the restored Safari History.db file just like you would as usual

That’s it, now you have restored the browser history from Safari that was deleted!

Inside the ~/Library/Safari/ folder on the Mac, you’re specifically looking for the “History.db” file, which can be a good size depending on how much web browsing you do. It’s essentially just a database file that you can query directly with SQL if you’d like to, but that’s not what we’re going to do here since you can also just access, search, and browse through Safari history in Safari on the Mac itself, and we’re aiming to keep things simple for this particular tutorial.

Note this approach will only work for recovering and restoring Safari browsing history that was deleted or cleared from the Mac, it will *not* work for recovering a private session where no history was created. For example, if you use Private Browsing in Safari for Mac to prevent history from being gathered in the first place, there would be no history data to restore from Time Machine (or in general outside of some complicated memory or swap extraction attempt anyway, which is exceedingly more advanced than this tutorial would even attempt to imply, though it could be theoretically possible in some scenarios).

Obviously this approach is for the Mac, but theoretically you could use a similar method for iOS too. Users can always search Safari History on the iPhone or iPad too, as well as delete specific browser history on the iOS Safari browser, but to recover deleted Safari history in iOS you would need to be able to restore a device with a backup either from iCloud or iTunes that contained the deleted Safari history. That’s a topic for another article however, so that won’t be discussed here.

Was this helpful to you if you needed or wanted to restore deleted Safari web browser history on a Mac? Do you know of another approach that works? Share your comments and experiences in the comments below!

Related

If you’re a regular VirtualBox user, you may appreciate knowing how to convert an ISO image file (.iso) into a VDI Virtual Box image file (.vdi). Converting an iso to vdi is different from simply booting VirtualBox from an iso, instead it is taking an .iso image, for example of a live boot image, and then converting that itself to a .vdi VirtualBox virtual disk image. This is useful for many reasons, whether to customize that image file, or for administration or testing purposes.

This guide will show you how to convert an iso image to a VirtualBox VDI disk image by using the command line on the Mac, but it should work the same with VirtualBox command line tools for Windows and Linux too.

This walkthrough assumes that you already have VirtualBox installed on the computer, whether it’s to run Windows 10 in a VirtualBox, Linux, or whatever. You will need VirtualBox installed because it includes the VBoxManage command line utility that is necessary for this iso to vdi conversion process to work.

How to Convert an ISO Image into VDI Disk Image

Assuming you already have the VirtualBox app installed, the conversion process from iso to vdi is quite simple. Open a new Terminal window and at the command line enter the following syntax:

VBoxManage convertfromraw DiskImage.iso VirtualDisk.vdi

For example if you have an iso in the Downloads/ directory and you want to convert it into a VirtualBox VDI file:

VBoxManage convertfromraw ~/Downloads/LinuxLiveBoot.iso ~/VMs/LinuxLiveBootVM.vdi

The conversion process can take a little while depending on the hardware.

Again this command should work on Mac OS, Linux, and Windows, anywhere with the ‘VBoxManage’ command available to it.

Note that “VBoxManage” is capitalized, and it’s important to use the proper capitalization otherwise the command will show as ‘not found’ because of a syntax error, not because it’s unavailable.

If some of this looks familiar to you it might be because we’ve discussed the VBoxManage command line tool in the past when demonstrating resizing a VirtualBox virtual disk VDI file.

One useful set of tricks with this is to take a live disk, a DVD, or boot drive, create an .iso image from the command line using that volume as the image, and then converting that to the VDI file that you can load into VirtualBox. Of course you can also just take any existing iso and convert it into a VDI file too, which is commonly desired by many systems administrators.

Do you know of another approach to convert an ISO or disk image file into a VirtualBox disk image file? Let us know in the comments below!

Related

We’re back with another Apple-themed issue of Tech 911, where I give it my all to help you figure out the issues you’re having with your computer, smartphone, device, or life.

This time around, I’m getting a little personal. My girlfriend Jessica just got a brand-new MacBook Pro—keyboard issues be damned.

It can feel a little jarring to go from physical buttons to the MacBook Pro’s new Touch Bar, especially when you’re used to being able to just function-key your way through system commands in macOS.

I don’t remember exactly how she phrased it, the gist of Jessica’s question was “Where is that button that makes all my windows pop out?”

She was referring to the Mission Control button on her previous MacBook, which defaults to function key F3. There’s no F3 on the Touch Bar of the new MacBook when you’re looking at your macOS desktop. The bar is almost blank, with a gaping chasm between Esc key and your Control Strip.

You can pull up your function keys by simply pressing the function button, but you still won’t see the icons that used to live under them. (And, obviously, pressing a virtual button like F3 after hitting the Function button is going to do whatever F3 does, not summon Mission Control.)

So where did Mission Control go? If you look at the default icons on the Touch Bar—found in its Control Strip—you won’t find what you’re looking for. However, if you tap on the left-most arrow, that expands the Control Bar to show you the full range of shortcuts that you used physical buttons to access on older Macs. And right there, fourth from the left, is Mission Control.

Still, that’s a convoluted way to access it, and there are a few tricks you can do to put Mission Control—or other virtual buttons—more front-and-center on your new MacBook.

How to customize your Mac’s Control Bar

First, click on the Apple icon in the upper-left corner of your Mac and select System Preferences (or just click the icon on your Dock).

Select Keyboard, and then select Customize Touch Bar. You’ll now be able to move your mouse cursor down to your Touch Bar to remove any icons you don’t want on your Control Strip or, if you expand it first, the full Touch Bar. Swap out what you own’t use for what you will, or rearrange icons to an arrangement that better fits for your needs. The power is yours.

One important caveat, though: The Control Bar can only be so big. You get four easy-to-access icons, but that’s it, no more.

If you aren’t happy with that—and I’m certainly not—head back to the Keyboard settings window. In there, look for the “Press Fn key to…” option, and set that to “Expand Control Strip” for an easier way to show even more button shortcuts.

You can also set the Touch Bar to show the Expanded Control Strip by default (via the “Touch Bar shows…” menu), but the option is a double-edged sword: It’ll be easier to use your various system controls, but you’ll lose out on the specialized app controls that pop in and out as you switch through various programs.

Why Apple can’t just let you expand your Control Strip by default and flip the Touch Bar over to App Controls when necessary, I’ll never know. I think the best bet is to just remember the function key trick, which will give you all the old hardware keys you’ve abandoned without ruining most of the point of the Touch Bar.

Do you have a tech question keeping you up at night? Tired of troubleshooting your Windows or Mac? Looking for advice on apps, browser extensions, or utilities you can use to accomplish a particular task? Let us know! Tell us in the comments below or, better yet, email [email protected].

If you want to quickly see what emails are unread in the Mail app for Mac, a new simple filter option makes it easier than ever to show only the new or marked unread messages in your email inboxes.

This quick-toggle unread email filter feature is available in the most modern versions of Mail for Mac OS, if you are on an earlier system software release this ability will not be available to you, however you could use the unread email inbox sorting trick here instead. Assuming you are on one of the more modern versions of system software though, the new unread email toggle filter is available. Here’s how it works:

How to Filter for Unread Emails on Mac to See All Unread Messages

1. Open the Mail app on Mac if you have not done so already
2. At the primary Mailboxes screen in Mail, locate the little filter toggle button, it’s quite small and looks like a series of lines atop one another



3. Click the little filter button to instantly filter all emails to show Unread messages only
4. Click the Filter toggle again to show all emails in the inbox, both unread and read

All unread emails will be shown on the Mail screen only for as long as that toggle is set and enabled. In other words, you can toggle it on once and then for each subsequent launch of Mail app the Unread Filter will stay enabled.

This is a great trick to combine with refreshing the inbox to check for new email with a keystroke if you want to focus efforts on only on new or unread messages. It’s also an incredibly helpful trick if you ever find yourself with the Mail app showing you have new unread emails available, but you can’t find them quickly on screen. By toggling the Unread filter, even old emails that are marked as unread will show up on screen.

Note you must click on the actual little round filter button to filter the inbox.

If you click on the text next to the filter button, you will instead reveal a dropdown menu where you can select what the quick Filter button does, including adjusting some simple filtering options for each email account setup on the Mac Mail app and

As mentioned before, this little Filter toggle button is only available in the latest versions of Mail app for Mac OS, including any version beyond Sierra (10.12) or later. For Mac users on an older version of system software, a similar function can be performed by creating an unread mail smart inbox in Mail for Mac in virtually any version of Mail app, and that approach still works in the new versions of MacOS Mail too.

While this is obviously geared towards Mac users and the Mail app, mobile devices like the iPhone and iPad also have a Show Unread Email toggle in iOS Mail to easily and quickly see what emails have yet to be read. The unread email filter toggle works in a very similar manner in both macOS and iOS.

Related

Python is a popular programming language that is widely used by beginners and longtime developers alike. Modern Mac OS versions come with Python 2.7.x installed (or Python 2.6.1 if an older Mac OS X version), but many Python users may need to update Python in Mac OS to a newer version like Python 3.6.5.

This article will discuss how to get an updated Python 3 installation on the Mac by covering two different ways to quickly and easily install Python 3 onto a Mac.

Note that we said install Python 3, not update to Python 3, because how this will work is installing Python 3 while simultaneously maintaining Python 2 on the Mac. This is essential because apparently some Mac apps rely on Python 2 support, so if you attempt to upgrade Python 2.x to Python 3.x in Mac OS you will eventually find that something is broken, perhaps critically so. With that in mind you should not attempt to update the existing preinstalled Python release on a Mac, instead you will just have a co-installation of Python 3 for full compatibility.

And yes, Python 3 and Python 2 can coexist on a Mac without any conflict, the usage commands will just be slightly different.

How to Install the Updated Python 3 in Mac OS

Perhaps the simplest way to install Python 3 is by using the Python package installer from python.org

1. Go to Python.org downloads page here and download the latest Python installer package
2. Run the Python installer package and install Python 3 onto the Mac

Python 3.6.x requires about 100mb of disk space to install. Installation is quick, and you’ll have Python 3.x alongside Python 2.x on the Mac.

Once Python 3 is installed you will find a Python3 folder within the /Applications directory of your Mac. You’ll also find the simple IDE called IDLE within the /Applications/MacPython3/ directory, which basically gives you the same Python IDE you’d encounter if you ran ‘python3’ at the command prompt in Terminal.

You can also install Python 3.x on a Mac through Homebrew, which is my preferred method as a Homebrew user.

How to Install Python 3.6.5 with Homebrew

Installing an updated version of Python 3.6.5 (as of time of writing) is super easy with HomeBrew. Of course you will need Homebrew installed on the Mac before you can use the Homebrew method, but if you’re interested in messing around with Python then Homebrew will probably appeal to you anyway.

We’re going to assume you already have Homebrew, if you don’t the you can read here how to install Homebrew on Mac OS.

To install the latest version of Python 3 using Homebrew, just issue the following command string:

brew install python3

Once the updated Python 3 has been installed on the Mac, you can run it with:

python3

Whether you install the updated Python 3 with the package installer or Homebrew, the default version of Python 2.7 that comes preinstalled with Mac OS and Mac OS X will still be installed, completely untouched, and can be run with the simple “python” command as always.

How to Check What Version of Python is Currently Installed in Mac OS

From the Terminal application, simply typing the following command will report back what version of Python is currently installed:

python --version

In MacOS, you will find it’s typically Python 2.7.x of some variation, either 2.7.4 or 2.7.10 or similar.

After you have installed Python with Homebrew or with the package installer, you can check the updated new version of Python with:

python3 --version

And as mentioned before, both installations of Python will coexist without conflict.

You can also find out where each version of python is installed with the ‘which’ or ‘whereis’ command:

Note that some aspects of Python are different in each version, and even features like the instant Python simple web server trick is different from version 2 to version 3. If you’re planning on using something longterm, or learning in general, you’ll be better off writing in Python 3.x rather than the older Python 2.x releases.

So now that you’ve got Python 3 installed, you’re ready to roll!

Learning Python, and Python Resources

If you’re new to Python and programming in general, there are a variety of great resources out there to get you started.

If you’re the type to enjoy learning from a book, some popular choices are:

You can check out free online courses too, including these from MIT:

Or you can also explore the broad Python Wiki resources page here too.

TLDR: Don’t Update Python 2.x to Python 3.x, Just Install Python 3.x on the Mac

TLDR: Don’t update the preinstalled Python 2.x to Python 3.x, it will likely break something in doing so. Instead, just install and run the updated Python 3 separately.

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Creating a bootable MacOS Mojave beta installer drive with a USB key or flash drive is a common desire for many advanced Mac users testing the upcoming macOS 10.14 operating system.

A bootable macOS Mojave installer has several benefits, including the ability to format a target disk, easily perform clean installs, the ability to install the beta on multiple Macs without having to re-download the installer, and of course since it’s bootable it can be used as a troubleshooting device for macOS Mojave beta Macs as well.

The tutorial here will walk through how to make a bootable USB install drive for the macOS Mojave 10.14 beta.

Requirements to Make a macOS Mojave 10.14 Beta USB Install Drive

Before getting stated, you’ll need to meet a few simple requirements to be able to properly create a functioning macOS Mojave beta installer boot drive:

Building a USB install drive for macOS Mojave beta requires using the command line, where exact syntax must be used in order to avoid erroneously erasing the wrong volume. Be sure to backup the Mac before beginning this process.

How to Make a Bootable macOS Mojave 10.14 Beta USB Installer Drive

1. First, connect the USB flash drive to the Mac (if the USB flash drive is not yet formatted as MacOS Journaled Extended, do that first with Disk Utility)
2. Download the macOS Mojave developer beta installer application from the Mac App Store
3. When the macOS Mojave 10.14 beta installer has finished downloading it will automatically launch, quit out of the Mojave beta installer app, be sure to leave the “Install macOS 10.14 Beta.app” within the /Applications/ folder on the Mac
4. Now open the “Terminal” application, found in /Applications/Utilities/ directory
5. Enter the following command at the Terminal command line, replace “UNTITLED” with the USB drive name if necessary for your situation:

sudo /Applications/Install macOS 10.14 Beta.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia --volume /Volumes/UNTITLED --applicationpath /Applications/Install macOS 10.14 Beta.app && echo Mojave Drive Created

6. Confirm the syntax is correct and hit the Return key and enter the administrator password as required by sudo
7. The MacOS Mojave 10.14 beta installer drive will begin immediately, it can take a while to finish

After the macOS Mojave 10.14 beta USB installer drive has finished being created, you can use it just like you would any other bootable Mac OS install drive. You can immediately run the installer, or eject the drive and use it on another Mac, or reboot the computer with it attached so that you can boot from the Mojave beta installer to install the update, perform a clean install, or partition the Mac to install Mojave beta onto that partition instead. There are many options available for how to use the macOS Mojave beta install drive.

* If you are getting a “command not found” error, it’s likely that the syntax entered is incorrect, or the Install macOS 10.14 beta app installer is not downloaded and located within the /Applications directory.

Note this applies to the current macOS Mojave developer beta, we will update with instructions for the macOS Mojave public beta when it becomes available.

How to Boot from the macOS Mojave Beta USB Install Drive

• Connect the macOS Mojave 10.14 beta install drive to a Mac via USB if you have not done so already
• Reboot the Mac and hold down the OPTION key
• At the boot menu choose the macOS Mojave 10.14 beta installer volume to boot from

After you have booted from the macOS Mojave 10.14 beta USB drive, you can perform an installation of macOS Mojave beta, run Disk Utility to format or partition a drive, work with Time Machine, use the Terminal, or perform other common tasks from the bootable volume.

Once booted from the USB drive you can proceed with installing macOS High Sierra, using the Disk Utility tools to format or erase a volume, work with Time Machine, and other similar tasks. If you are aiming to install macOS Mojave beta onto a Mac, be sure the target Mac meets the macOS Mojave system requirements for compatibility.

Do you have another method of making a bootable USB drive for macOS Mojave beta? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!

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