Finding Orphan Packages in Homebrew

Keeping your software up to date is important to stay safe. I recently watched Hacker - We get you within 5 minutes!, which talks about security mistakes people and companies make. So keep your software up to date!

I also only install what I really need to reduce the overall attack surface. That doesn’t mean I never install things I’ll only use temporarily. But I try to notice when I’m not using something anymore and remove it.

Homebrew helps me keep track of the programs on my computer. It has a useful command that checks what I have installed. Since I use fish shell, the command below is written in fish syntax:

for pkg in (brew list)
	set deps (brew uses --installed $pkg)
	if test (count $deps) -eq 0
		echo "$pkg is not used by any installed package"
	else
		echo "$pkg is required by: $deps"
	end
end

This checks the dependencies between installed programs. It finds “orphan” packages - packages that nothing else needs. You can review it and decide which ones to remove. Here’s what the output might look like:

ansible is not used by any installed package
brotli is required by: mongosh node
certifi is required by: ansible
cryptography is required by: ansible
docker is not used by any installed package
flac is not used by any installed package