Install postgresql with brew on Mac

Homebrew calls itself ‘the missing package manager for macOS’. It can be used to build and install applications and libraries. Once installed, you can use the brew command to install PostgreSQL and it’s dependencies as follows:

brew update
brew install postgresql

Homebrew generally installs the latest stable version. If you need a different one then brew search postgresql will list the versions available. If you need PostgreSQL built with particular options then brew info postgresql will list which options are supported. If you require an unsupported build option, you may have to do the build yourself, but can still use Homebrew to install the common dependencies.

Start the server:

brew services start postgresql

Open the PostgreSQL prompt

psql

If psql complains that there’s no corresponding database for your user, run createdb.