How to install latest version of Node using Brew

Question

The latest version of NodeJs right now is 0.4.1

The command brew install node right now, installs 0.2.6 - which is not ideal. I would like 0.4.1

I've looked at this list of commands for brew and tried brew install --HEAD node

But that installs node 0.5-pre.

Why isn't brew installing the right version and how can I force it to get the right one?

At this stage, it looks like it would actually be easier just to download the src and install it manually. But I would like to know what's going on with Brew.

I am curious. What is the difference between installing via Homebrew and installing from the package downloaded from [nodejs.org](http://nodejs.org)? — yihangho, Jun 28 '13 at 15:48

score 369 · Answer 1 · edited Jan 28 '16 at 09:06

369

Run commands below, in this order:

brew update
brew doctor
brew upgrade node

Now you have installed updated version of node, and it's probably not linked. If it's not, then just type: brew link node or brew link --overwrite node

edited Jan 28 '16 at 09:06

Bryan Downing

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answered Dec 22 '12 at 09:14

Andrey Bodoev

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Keep getting `/usr/local/share/doc/node is not writable.` – Saba Ahang Mar 07 '16 at 16:56
@SabaAhang, see: Fix permissions on /usr/local for Homebrew ; ; https://gist.github.com/rpavlik/768518 – AnneTheAgile Jul 08 '16 at 22:45
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Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/node – mercury Jun 01 '17 at 22:21
Nice, this fixed an NPM failure ("Buffer.alloc is not a function") because the node keg was unlinked; needed to force link/overwrite old files. – dave Sep 04 '17 at 06:14
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`brew link --overwrite node` it's really of importance! thanks – hanzichi Jun 27 '18 at 03:36
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@SabaAhang Just run `sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local` – souravb Sep 11 '18 at 06:57

score 164 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 13 '17 at 11:37

164

After installation/upgrading node via brew I ran into this issue exactly: the node command worked but not the npm command.

I used these commands to fix it.

brew uninstall node
brew update
brew upgrade
brew cleanup
brew install node
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local
brew link --overwrite node
brew postinstall node

I pieced together this solution after trial and error using...

a github thread: https://github.com/npm/npm/issues/3125
this site: http://developpeers.com/blogs/fix-for-homebrew-permission-denied-issues

edited Jul 13 '17 at 11:37

Stephan Kristyn

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answered Nov 19 '14 at 03:31

Eric Walsh

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`sudo brew postinstall node` will throw an error unless brew is owned by root (not recommended). I don't think it should be needed if you already did `sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local`. You should be able to just run `brew postinstall node`. – Sam Fen Dec 14 '15 at 19:47
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@SamFen 's right. `sudo` not needed. I first ran the accepted answer before I gave this listing of commands a go. Afterwards I ran `node -v` and everything seems fine now. – 6754534367 May 19 '16 at 18:15
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Use sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/* instead of sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local – Troy Thompson II Jun 23 '18 at 19:42

score 142 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 20 '11 at 09:13

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Have you run brew update first? If you don't do that, Homebrew can't update its formulas, and if it doesn't update its formulas it doesn't know how to install the latest versions of software.

answered Feb 20 '11 at 09:13

Lily Ballard

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Right, I'd tried 'brew update node' but I see now you are right. It didn't occur to me because the doco says that 'brew update' would update the brew software - which would seem to make no difference. But it mentions 'formulea' - which is just a (frankly) stupid word for what is basically it's 'library of software versions'. I can do 'brew info node' to find out what version it's going to install. It's set to 0.4.0 so I ended up installing from src anyway, but this is right. Thank you. – PandaWood Feb 20 '11 at 12:12
When it says "update the brew software" it doesn't mean update software that brew has installed - it means update brew itself, as well as its library of Formulae. – Lily Ballard Feb 20 '11 at 22:58

score 27 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 23 '18 at 15:41

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Also, try to deactivate the current node version after installing a new node version. It helps me.

nvm deactivate

This is removed /Users/user_name/.nvm/*/bin from $PATH

And after that node was updated

node --version
v10.9.0

answered Aug 23 '18 at 15:41

AlexSh

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score 25 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 27 '12 at 18:17

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Sometimes brew update fails on me because one package doesn't download properly. So you can just upgrade a specific library like this:

brew upgrade node

https://gist.github.com/3005832

answered Jun 27 '12 at 18:17

Lance

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Harikrishnan · Answer 6 · 2019-03-23T09:37:07.267

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If you have installed current node via Homebrew, just use these commands.

brew update
brew upgrade node

Check node version by

node -v

edited Mar 23 '19 at 09:37

answered Feb 12 '19 at 05:25

Harikrishnan

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score 12 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 20 '13 at 18:58

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I had to do brew link --overwrite node after brew install node to update from 0.4 to 0.8.18

answered Jan 20 '13 at 18:58

ojreadmore

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Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/node – mercury Jun 01 '17 at 22:21

score 12 · Answer 8 · edited Jan 19 '20 at 04:24

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node -v will show you the current version.
npm -v will show you the current version.
brew link --overwrite --dry-run node will force the link and overwrite all conflicting files.
brew install node do a fresh installation.
brew update
brew upgrade node
brew link --overwrite node

or

brew link node

Node Upgrade Procedure are below

edited Jan 19 '20 at 04:24

the Tin Man

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answered Jan 18 '20 at 16:16

Mahendra Rao

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This might be helpful to some -/usr/local/include/node is not writable https://www.codegrepper.com/code-examples/javascript/Error%3A+Could+not+symlink+include%2Fnode%2Fcommon.gypi+%2Fusr%2Flocal%2Finclude%2Fnode+is+not+writable. – Shubham Dixit Sep 01 '21 at 07:29

score 9 · Answer 9 · answered Oct 19 '16 at 01:34

Try to use "n" the Node extremely simple package manager.

> npm install -g n

Once you have "n" installed. You can pull the latest node by doing the following:

> n latest

I've used it successfully on Ubuntu 16.0x and MacOS 10.12 (Sierra)

Reference: https://github.com/tj/n

score 5 · Answer 10 · answered Jan 11 '16 at 15:57

Just used this solution with Homebrew 0.9.5 and it seemed like a quick solution to upgrade to the latest stable version of node.

brew update

This will install the latest version

brew install node

Unlink your current version of node use, node -v, to find this

brew unlink node012

This will change to the most up to date version of node.

brew link node

Note: This solution worked as a result of me getting this error:

Error: No such keg: /usr/local/Cellar/node

score 4 · Answer 11 · answered May 16 '18 at 02:23

I did this on Mac OSX Sierra. I had Node 6.1 installed but Puppetter required Node 6.4. This is what I did:

brew upgrade node
brew unlink node
brew link --overwrite node@8
echo 'export PATH="/usr/local/opt/node@8/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile

And then open a new terminal window and run:

node -v
v8.11.2

The --overwrite is necessary to override conflicting files between node6 and node8

score 4 · Answer 12 · answered Jul 07 '22 at 20:26

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I tried everything here, but apparently, I had used nvm to install node. So I just ran

nvm deactivate

And then

brew install node
node -v

answered Jul 07 '22 at 20:26

Thiago Avila

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score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Jul 03 '14 at 05:45

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You can use nodebrew. It can switch node versions too.

answered Jul 03 '14 at 05:45

c-project

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Hims1911 · Answer 14 · 2021-04-05T18:38:37.660

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if the node is not installed then

brew install node

If you have an older version of the node installed then remove it and re-install freshly that's the only suitable way.

Make sure to add the path in the environment file.

edited Apr 05 '21 at 18:38

answered Nov 12 '20 at 09:19

Hims1911

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score 1 · Answer 15 · answered Nov 17 '15 at 23:58

If you're willing to remove the brew dependency, I would recommend nvm - I can't really recommend it over any other versioning solution because I haven't needed to try anything else. Having the ability to switch instantly between versions depending on which project you're working on is pretty valuable.

score 1 · Answer 16 · answered Jul 04 '16 at 01:07

1

Just go old skool - https://nodejs.org/en/download/current/ From there you can get the current or LTS versions

answered Jul 04 '16 at 01:07

danharsanyi

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score 1 · Answer 17 · answered Oct 17 '21 at 13:48

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sudo n latest

OR

brew update

brew upgrade node

Reference: https://bytearcher.com/articles/ways-to-get-the-latest-node.js-version-on-a-mac/

answered Oct 17 '21 at 13:48

abhay anand

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How to install latest version of Node using Brew

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