Homebrew is an extraordinarily helpful tool to install and maintain system libraries. However, until I found out about the switch command, I didn’t have a straightforward way to switch between versions of a particular keg. Here’s how you can use it to switch between Postgres versions.
1. Select Your Version
If you run brew info postgres, the output will include a list of library versions. It’ll look something like this:
/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.3.1 (2,928 files, 33.3M)
Built from source on 2014-04-29 at 15:35:23
/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.3.4 (2,937 files, 32.1M)
Poured from bottle on 2014-04-15 at 22:00:59
/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.4.1 (2,998 files, 33.4M)
Poured from bottle on 2015-02-05 at 17:40:55
/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.4.4 (3,023 files, 33.5M)
Poured from bottle on 2015-06-13 at 19:01:33
/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.5.5 (3,154 files, 35.1M) *
Poured from bottle on 2016-11-14 at 11:12:56
If you don’t see the version you need, it is possible to install it.
1a. Install your version.
If you haven’t tapped brew versions, you can do so by running brew tap homebrew/versions. This will add each version of each keg to the output when you run brew search postgres. From there, you can run brew install homebrew/versions/keg-version.
For example, to install Postgres 9.5.5, you would run brew install homebrew/versions/postgresql95.
2. Stop Any Running Services
If you are switching a keg that runs as a Homebrew service, you should stop it before switching to a new version. You can run brew services stop postgres to do so.
3. Switch to Your New Version
Now that we have the correct version installed and we have stopped any previous versions from running, we can switch to the correct version. All you have to do is run brew switch postgres. Under the hood, this actually performs two separate brew commands. First, it unlinks the old version, and then it links the new one.
4. Start the Service
If Step 2 applies to you, you’ll need to start the brew service again by running brew services start postgres.
Hopefully, this will help you move easily between different projects with different system dependencies.
I am commenting here after a whole hour on Google trying to find answers. I just installed Postgres with Homebrew (following this tutorial https://www.codementor.io/devops/tutorial/getting-started-postgresql-server-mac-osx) but then when I typed “psql postgres”, I got “password authentication failed for user “…””. I also found out there’s a previous version on my computer (don’t know how it got there). I’ve tried to switch (first changing path in my ~/.bash_profile and then following your instructions here. Nothing is working. “postgres -V” actually shows new version installed but I am locked out for some reason.
Warning: homebrew/versions was deprecated. This tap is now empty as all its formulae were migrated.