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homebrewhomebrew-cask

brew doctor warnings - delete or ignore?

After I installed Homebrew,

Then I try the brew doctor command, there comes warnings:

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Could I know the reasons and How to fix it? Could I just ignore these warnings?

Solution

  • The files reported by brew doctor are added by a software (that you manually installed before installing Homebrew) that uses a library for the Tcl/Tk language.

    Homebrew also provides a library for Tcl/Tk and the existing files will conflict with those installed by Homebrew if you install a package that requires the Tcl/Tk library.

    You don't have to worry for now and, very important, don't try to "fix" anything (especially don't remove files).

    What you can do to "fix" it is to find out what program installed those files (it was not installed using the App Store, you installed it manually) and see if Homebrew provides it. If it is a macOS GUI application then Homebrew doesn't provide it (it contains only command line applications, no GUI) but Homebrew Cask might do it.

    Use

    $ brew search app

    or

    $ brew cask search app

    If you are lucky and you find it and you are pleased with the version provided by Homebrew then you can uninstall the application using the uninstaller it hopefully provides then reinstall it using Homebrew (or Homebrew Cask).

    You can run brew doctor between uninstall and reinstall to make sure the uninstaller removed all the files listed in the output of brew doctor now.