Homebrew cellar doesn't seem to exist

Question

I've been using homebrew for a while on OSX Mavericks, however I'm now dealing with needing to add files to folders of those same installed programs.

Here's the issue, when typing:

$ brew info ant

I get /usr/local/Cellar/ant...., as does any of my installed programs. The issue is that the Cellar doesn't seem to exist on my computer. When I search from Spotlight it finds no usr folder, with the exception of some nested within my Eclipse folder that hasn't been used for years. When I attempt to:

$ cd ~/usr/

it, too, doesn't exist. Also NO folder on my computer exists called Cellar (that Spotlight can find)

Does homebrew store this folder in some hidden way? (I'm hesitant to think this is the case, since I have all hidden files shown)

Answer 1

While in the Finder, enter Cmd+Shift+G and enter /usr/local/Cellar in the dialog that pops up.

Alternately, in Terminal.app (or whatever terminal program you're using), enter open /usr/local/Cellar at a prompt.

Both will open up a new Finder window to the homebrew Cellar directory.

You can verify that the Cellar directory is in the default location with brew --cellar in the terminal.

Answer 2

I found my Cellar folder on:

/opt/homebrew/Cellar

But the best trick is run the command brew --cellar

Answer 3

Re-installing the homebrew solved the issue for me.

It looks like the issue after upgrading to Mavericks.

See https://brew.sh/ run the install again.

Answer 4

You need to type

cd /usr

not

cd ~/usr

/usr is at the top of the file directory for unix based systems, its not something in your home folder (~ = /Users/yourname )

to get spotlight to see the folder you will have to make a symlink to it somewhere outside of /usr.

This post covers a similar problem and has a suggested solution using Automomator to prevent any issues with any apps installed with homebrew: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/23653/can-i-make-a-symlink-to-a-app-folder-in-applications-directory-show-up-in-spo