macOS "zsh: command not found: brew": add Homebrew to your PATH

1. Is it installed?

Look in both places:

ls -l /opt/homebrew/bin/brew      # Apple silicon
ls -l /usr/local/bin/brew         # Intel
uname -m                          # arm64 = Apple silicon, x86_64 = Intel

Run it by its full path to be sure:

/opt/homebrew/bin/brew --version

• It answers: the problem is your PATH (section 2).
• No such file: Homebrew isn’t there (section 3).

2. Add it to your PATH

brew shellenv prints the settings your shell needs, including PATH. The right place for it is ~/.zprofile, which zsh reads when a terminal opens:

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

Apply it to this terminal, without opening a new one:

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

Then check:

which brew
echo "$PATH"
brew doctor

If you already had that line, look for what’s undoing it. A line like export PATH=/something with no $PATH in it, in ~/.zshrc or ~/.zprofile, throws away everything before it:

grep -n 'PATH' ~/.zprofile ~/.zshrc ~/.zshenv 2>/dev/null

It should look like export PATH="$HOME/bin:$PATH".

3. Install it

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

Read what it prints when it finishes: the Next steps section gives you the same commands as in section 2.

The installer needs the Command Line Tools. If that step fails with xcrun: error: invalid active developer path, see the xcrun article.

4. It stopped working after moving to a new Mac

Migration Assistant copied your settings from an Intel Mac to an Apple silicon one. Your profile now points at /usr/local, and there’s an old Intel Homebrew there, or nothing. Install Homebrew again, for this machine, so that it goes in /opt/homebrew, then:

brew bundle dump --file=~/Brewfile --force     # on the old one, if it still works
brew bundle install --file=~/Brewfile          # on the new one

Then remove the old /usr/local line from your profile. Keeping both makes things confusing, since which brew runs depends on the order of PATH.

5. Other shells, and tools that run without a login

You’re on bash or fish. Your shell reads different files. Check with echo $SHELL:

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

# fish
echo 'eval (/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)' >> ~/.config/fish/config.fish

In a script, cron or launchd job, or an IDE’s task: these don’t read your profile, so the command isn’t found there, even though it works in your terminal. Use the full path, or set it at the top of the script:

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

The same reasoning applies to cron jobs on any system.

Under Rosetta. A terminal opened with Open using Rosetta reports x86_64, and would use an Intel installation. Turn that off in the app’s Get Info window, and don’t mix the two.

6. Other commands from Homebrew aren’t found

brew works, but node or python3 doesn’t? Some formulae are “keg-only”: they aren’t linked, so as not to conflict with what macOS ships. brew info tells you what to do:

brew info node@22
brew link --overwrite node@22

For a keg-only one, use the export PATH=... line its message suggests.