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This repository was archived by the owner on Sep 23, 2026. It is now read-only.
App Fair's Homebrew should share installed apps with the system Homebrew's Cask folder #2
I would have expected AppFair to show already installed homebrew apps (like Cakebrew). I would have to uninstall everything and reinstall it to make proper use of AppFair. Any way around this?
The issue appears to be that AppFair, for some reason, bundles and uses its own homebrew install rather than using the already installed one, as per https://appfair.app/#advanced-user-faqs, which results in the two homebrew installs being unable to communicate. Until/unless they begin using the previous brew install (which they should, I have no clue why they aren't) this issue probably can't be fixed.
The issue appears to be that AppFair, for some reason, bundles and uses its own homebrew install rather than using the already installed one
But couldn't it still pull that info from the other homebrew install and either also allow management of those (like Cakebrew) or at least offer some kind of migration assistant to pull those over to be managed by AppFair so I don't have to uninstall everything and reinstall it with AppFair myself? That sounds pretty useful to me and pretty important if you wanna convince homebrew users to start using AppFair.
Apologies for the delayed response. @noahgaertner is correct that the App Fair uses its own Homebrew location in order to be able to distinguish between the apps that it has installed itself and apps installed by other means. Also, the App Fair doesn't require a pre-existing Homebrew install, so it needs at least the capability of maintaining one even if the user can't write to "/opt/" or "/usr/local/". But I agree that it is important that we be able to allow the user the option to use a single shared homebrew install, because having two separate registries of casks can be very confusing.
The stopgap solution I was planning on recommending, which would be to symlink the system's Caskroom into the App Fair's Homebrew installation library (~/Library/Application Support/app.App-Fair/appfair-homebrew/Homebrew/Caskroom), won't work due to a bug in the App Fair that results in it reporting that the Caskroom is "not a directory".
I'll work on at least getting the stopgap solution operational, and then we can eventually work out how to implement a nicer user-facing solution.
Reacted by stalonium, Benjamin Dahl, Bram Verstraten and harithoppil
changed the title [-]AppFair doesn't show the already installed homebrew apps on my machine[/-][+]App Fair's Homebrew should share installed apps with the system Homebrew's Cask folder[/+]on Jun 23, 2022
This is the only thing that's stopping me from actually using the app. Otherwise it looks amazing!
Maybe some inspiration can be found in the Sourcetree app, where you can choose between Embedded Git or System Git in the app's settings. This would result in Embedded Homebrew (the way it is now) and System Homebrew (using the Homebrew already installed on your system).
I also faced the same error, after googling found out that creating symlink via finder is the issue. Using full paths via terminal, and the error does not occur, So in my case: sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew "/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/app.App-Fair/appfair-homebrew/Homebrew" Or, there is always option of using Hard Links, if this does not work; hardlink-osx is a neat tool to simplify the process and can be installed via brew.
I recently started using Brewlet to manage Homebrew updates. In this app I can select the Homebrew location or even define a custom path. I think this would be the perfect way to handle this issue.
Activity
MohamedElashri commentedon Jun 8, 2022
I would second this essential feature
noahgaertner commentedon Jun 9, 2022
The issue appears to be that AppFair, for some reason, bundles and uses its own homebrew install rather than using the already installed one, as per https://appfair.app/#advanced-user-faqs, which results in the two homebrew installs being unable to communicate. Until/unless they begin using the previous brew install (which they should, I have no clue why they aren't) this issue probably can't be fixed.
stalonium commentedon Jun 11, 2022
But couldn't it still pull that info from the other homebrew install and either also allow management of those (like Cakebrew) or at least offer some kind of migration assistant to pull those over to be managed by AppFair so I don't have to uninstall everything and reinstall it with AppFair myself? That sounds pretty useful to me and pretty important if you wanna convince homebrew users to start using AppFair.
benjamindahl commentedon Jun 11, 2022
+1
marcprux commentedon Jun 17, 2022
Apologies for the delayed response. @noahgaertner is correct that the App Fair uses its own Homebrew location in order to be able to distinguish between the apps that it has installed itself and apps installed by other means. Also, the App Fair doesn't require a pre-existing Homebrew install, so it needs at least the capability of maintaining one even if the user can't write to "/opt/" or "/usr/local/". But I agree that it is important that we be able to allow the user the option to use a single shared homebrew install, because having two separate registries of casks can be very confusing.
The stopgap solution I was planning on recommending, which would be to symlink the system's Caskroom into the App Fair's Homebrew installation library (
~/Library/Application Support/app.App-Fair/appfair-homebrew/Homebrew/Caskroom), won't work due to a bug in the App Fair that results in it reporting that the Caskroom is "not a directory".I'll work on at least getting the stopgap solution operational, and then we can eventually work out how to implement a nicer user-facing solution.
[-]AppFair doesn't show the already installed homebrew apps on my machine[/-][+]App Fair's Homebrew should share installed apps with the system Homebrew's Cask folder[/+]benjamindahl commentedon Aug 30, 2022
Hello, has this been worked on? I would love to use App-Fair alongside the mac Appstore to manage app installations.
streamtree commentedon Sep 4, 2022
Can we get an update on this, please!
benjamindahl commentedon Dec 7, 2022
Are there any news about that?
verstratenbram commentedon Dec 14, 2022
This is the only thing that's stopping me from actually using the app. Otherwise it looks amazing!
Maybe some inspiration can be found in the Sourcetree app, where you can choose between Embedded Git or System Git in the app's settings. This would result in Embedded Homebrew (the way it is now) and System Homebrew (using the Homebrew already installed on your system).
harithoppil commentedon Feb 22, 2023
I also faced the same error, after googling found out that creating symlink via finder is the issue. Using full paths via terminal, and the error does not occur, So in my case: sudo ln -s /opt/homebrew "/Users/$USER/Library/Application Support/app.App-Fair/appfair-homebrew/Homebrew" Or, there is always option of using Hard Links, if this does not work; hardlink-osx is a neat tool to simplify the process and can be installed via brew.
verstratenbram commentedon Apr 7, 2023
I recently started using Brewlet to manage Homebrew updates. In this app I can select the Homebrew location or even define a custom path. I think this would be the perfect way to handle this issue.