Run x86 Terminal Apps (Like Homebrew) on Your New M1 Mac

(Hint: You do it with Rosetta 2)

Ahad Sheriff

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Dec 9, 2020 · 2 min read

Here’s what to do while you wait for developers to add native ARM support for the x86 apps you know and love, such as Homebrew (which should be getting support soon).

Use “arch” to run commands in the native Terminal

You can run x86 terminal commands with Apple’s Rosetta 2 by adding the following arch command before it:

arch -x86_64 /bin/bash

So to install Homebrew, run the following:

arch -x86_64 /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/in...)"

You can read more about this here.

Create a separate Rosetta 2 Terminal

1. Open Finder and navigate to Applications -> Utilities
2. Right-click on the Terminal app and choose Duplicate
3. Rename your newly duplicated Terminal app something special like Terminal-Rosetta
4. Right-click theTerminal-Rosettaapp and click on Get Info
5. Select the option to Open using Rosetta
6. You can now use Terminal-Rosetta to install and run Homebrew and any other x86 command-line apps just as you did back in the day 👏

Shoutout to the good people at Notion documenting this solution!