Show installation date of packages installed with Homebrew?

Homebrew shows me all packages that I have installed with brew leaves. However, it doesn't show me when was a package been installed.

Is it possible to make Homebrew show the installation date of packages?

Solution 1:

brew ls -lt lists installed packages, sorted by last modified date of the package installation directory, newest to oldest.

Equivalent results can be obtained with:

find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -lt

With this incantation, sort order can be changed by adding -U (creation date) or -u (last access date) to the ls -lt

$ find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -ltU # creation aka *installation date*
$ find /usr/local/Cellar -type d -maxdepth 0 | xargs ls -ltu # last access aka last use date

Add -r to ls -lt to reverse order, oldest to newest.

brew ls -l lists installed packages in alphabetical order.

It's unknown to me whether Homebrew affects a package folder's creation date during brew upgrade, so be aware that learning the first installation date of a package may be elusive.

The -a option for brew ls -l appears to be no longer available.

Solution 2:

brew ls -la this command may help you a bit. This command shows you information like command ls -la. You may know more from here https://developer.apple.com/legacy/library/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/ls.1.html

Solution 3:

Building off @Kevin-Prichard's answer, for anybody here in 2021.

brew ls --formula -lt

Variations

• Reverse order: brew ls --formula -ltr
• Only print package names: brew ls --formula -t
• Print 1 package name per line (useful for scripts): brew ls --formula -t1

Options

(from brew ls -h, with notes)

• --formula: brew requires the --formula flag when using -l or -t nowadays. Not sure when that started, but I'm on brew 3.0.1 so probably applies to versions >3.0. I'd guess this is to differentiate listing formulae vs casks (doesn't look like -lt are supported with --cask)
• -l: List formulae in long-format (i.e. with "last modified" date, akin to ls -l)
• -t: Sort formulae by time modified, listing most recently modified first.
• -r: Reverse the order of the formulae sort to list the oldest entries first. Note: make sure to use the -t flag with this one, to reverse by last-modified.
• -1: Force output to be one entry per line. This is the default when output is not to a terminal.

Solution 4:

Here are a few one-liner methods, and a link to a full-blown bash script. Adapt as you see fit by tinkering with the find and awk parameters:

List formulae updated within last day

find $(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula -type f -name "*.rb" -mtime -24h |
awk '{n=sprintf("basename %s",$0);n | getline f; close(f); sub(".rb$","",f); print f; }'

List formulae updated in last 30 minutes, with dates

find $(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula -type f -name "*.rb" -mtime -30m |
awk '{n=sprintf("basename %s",$0);n | getline f; close(f); d=sprintf("stat -f%Sm %s",$0);d | getline d; close(d); sub(".rb$","",f); print d" "f; }'

Updated in last 4 hours, with descriptions

find $(brew --repository)/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-core/Formula -type f -name "*.rb" -mtime -4h |
awk 'BEGIN {SQ="\047"; DQ="\042"} {n=sprintf("basename %s",$0);n | getline f; close(f); sub(".rb$","",f); d=sprintf("sed -En %ss/^ +desc %s(.*)%s/\\1/p%s %s",SQ,DQ,DQ,SQ,$0); d | getline d; close(d); print f": "d; }'

Bash script (output emulates brew desc with bolded formula names)

brew-recent.sh - Find recently updated Homebrew formulae (GitHub)

Some tips:

• find -s will sort output by filename
• other args for time: -mtime -90m or -mtime -3d