I do not reinstall my systems that often, so I always forget how to properly dump to and restore from my Brewfile. Maybe this post will help me to not forget (which I will), or at least help me jog my memory in case it does slip my mind again.

We would want to dump everything from the Mac App Store, as well as all Virtual Studio Code extensions, all our Casks and “Taps. We save it all to our iCloud Drive – not because we like iCloud that much, but because this is immediately available after the Mac is installed and the base configuration is completed:

brew bundle dump --mas --vscode --describe --taps --casks --brews --file ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Brewfile

On the new Mac, we just need to install brew and install everything from the Brewfile:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"
[...]
brew bundle install --file ~/Library/Mobile\ Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/Brewfile

Brew will now install everything from the Brewfile. If you include apps from the Mac App Store, like I do, make sure that you are signed-in to the Mac App Store before installing everything via “brew bundle”.

That’s it, done!