Installing Old Homebrew Cask Versions

Christian Emmer

Oct 4, 2025 · 5 min read

Homebrew makes it very difficult to install older versions of a cask.

Homebrew casks are a way to install macOS GUI applications (i.e. in the /Applications directory). Unlike Homebrew formulae, casks aren't typically symlinked.

Installing old versions of casks is more complicated than installing old versions of formulae, as there is no brew extract --cask command (as of writing).

Installing Old Homebrew Formula Versions

Aug 13, 2025 · 5 min read

Homebrew makes it very difficult to install older versions of a formula.

Installation

For our example cask, I'm going to use Amazon Corretto v24. This came from a real world need of mine to install non-LTS JDK versions at work. The only versioned casks for Corretto is for LTS JDK versions (corretto@17, corretto@21, corretto@25, etc.), so there is no corretto@24. Instead, we have to install an old version of corretto when it was v24.

First, we need to check out the entire Git history of homebrew/cask so that git can scan its file history for the desired version of the application:

● ● ●

shell

$ brew tap --force homebrew/cask

We only need to tap once. Subsequent runs should use brew update to update the tap.

Then, we need to make our local tap. Again, we only need to do this once ever:

● ● ●

shell

$ brew tap-new homebrew/local

Then, we'll need to figure out the path of the cask's Ruby file. As of writing, this would be Casks/<letter>/<cask>.rb, but a more resilient approach would be:

● ● ●

shell

$ cd "$(brew --repository homebrew/cask)"
$ git ls-files 'Casks/*' | grep -E "/corretto\.rb$"
Casks/c/corretto.rb

Then, we'll need to figure out the commit hash that updated the cask file to our desired application version. Here we'll print all Corretto v24 versions:

● ● ●

shell

$ cd "$(brew --repository homebrew/cask)"
$ git rev-list --all Casks/c/corretto.rb \
    | xargs -n1 -I% git --no-pager grep --fixed-strings "version \"24." % -- Casks/c/corretto.rb
51d5d6c524854fe11dfa82c5b7439e6a502c47cf:Casks/c/corretto.rb:  version "24.0.2.12.1"
a780d8ca78c3072c8c43ae6ed9108041c722fff0:Casks/c/corretto.rb:  version "24.0.1.9.1"
fe80d7e571d831942cf19f923be20db84bcd8738:Casks/c/corretto.rb:  version "24.0.0.36.2"

Then, we'll write the contents of the desired file version to our local homebrew/local tap. I'm choosing to use a naming scheme similar to versioned casks , which requires changing the cask name within the file. We'll only need to do this file write once ever:

● ● ●

shell

$ cd "$(brew --repository homebrew/cask)"
$ git show "51d5d6c524854fe11dfa82c5b7439e6a502c47cf:Casks/c/corretto.rb" \
    | sed "s/cask \"corretto\"/cask \"corretto@24.0.2.12.1\"/" \
    > "$(brew --repository homebrew/local)/Casks/corretto@24.0.2.12.1.rb"

Then, we'll install the cask:

● ● ●

shell

$ brew install --cask homebrew/local/corretto@24.0.2.12.1

Uninstallation

To uninstall all applications provided by the cask, run:

● ● ●

shell

$ brew uninstall corretto@24.0.2.12.1

To delete the local tap and all cask files, run:

● ● ●

shell

$ brew untap homebrew/local

And to remove your local copy of homebrew/cask (and stop it from updating on every brew update), run:

● ● ●

shell

$ brew untap homebrew/cask

As a dotfile function

Combining this together with the easier method to install old formula versions, we can write one clean function that you can put in your dotfiles:

bash

# Install a specific version of a Homebrew formula
# @param {string} $1 Formula name
# @param {string} $2 Formula version (exact)
vintage() {
  # Figure out the relevant tap
  local brew_tap
  local is_cask=false
  if brew search --cask "/^${1:?}$/" &> /dev/null; then
    brew_tap="homebrew/cask"
    is_cask=true
  else
    brew_tap="homebrew/core"
  fi

  # Ensure the appropriate tap is tapped and up to date
  if brew tap | grep -xq "${brew_tap}"; then
    brew update
  else
    brew tap --force "${brew_tap}"
  fi

  # Ensure homebrew/local is created
  brew tap | grep -xq homebrew/local \
    || brew tap homebrew/local

  if [ "${is_cask}" = false ]; then
    # If the formula is already installed, re-link it
    if brew list -1 | grep -xq "${1:?}@${2:?}"; then
      brew unlink "${1:?}@${2:?}"
      brew link --overwrite "${1:?}@${2:?}"
      return 0
    fi

    # Install the formula and ensure it's linked
    brew install "homebrew/local/${1:?}@${2:?}" \
      || brew link --overwrite "${1:?}@${2:?}"
  else (
    # Sub shell to make `cd` safe
    cd "$(brew --repository "${brew_tap}")" || return 1

    # Emulate `brew extract` for casks
    local cask_path
    cask_path=$(git ls-files 'Casks/*' | grep -E "/${1:?}\.rb$")
    local version_match
    version_match=$(git rev-list --all "${cask_path}" \
      | xargs -n1 -I% git --no-pager grep --fixed-strings "version \"${2:?}\"" % -- "${cask_path}" \
      2> /dev/null | head -1)
    local commit_hash="${version_match%%:*}"
    local local_cask_dir
    local_cask_dir="$(brew --repository homebrew/local)/Casks"
    if [ ! -d "${local_cask_dir}" ]; then
      mkdir -p "${local_cask_dir}"
    fi
    local local_cask_file="${local_cask_dir}/${1:?}@${2:?}.rb"
    git show "${commit_hash}:${cask_path}" \
      | sed "s/cask \"${1:?}\"/cask \"${1:?}@${2:?}\"/" \
      > "${local_cask_file}"

    # Install the formula
    brew install --cask "homebrew/local/${1:?}@${2:?}"
  ) fi
}