If you are trying to install a package using Homebrew on an Apple Silicon Mac, you encounter the error message "This software requires an arm64 architecture", which may surprise you because you are using an Apple Silicon Mac (any M1, M2, M3, M4, etc.).

It turns out that some Apple Silicon Mac users who have installed Homebrew in the past may inadvertently set the x86 version as default, or even installed the x86 version (Intel) Homebrew instead of the arm64 version (Apple Silicon), which results in an error message "This software requires an arm64 architecture" when trying to install a package for ARM Mac.

Fortunately, this can be easily solved with some command line tweaks, so if you see the message "This software requires an arm64 architecture" in Homebrew, read on and it will be solved soon.

How to fix brew's "arm64 architecture requirements" error on Apple Silicon Mac

If you have not opened the terminal on a Mac where brew error has occurred, please open the terminal and do the following.

First, use the following command to switch to the arm64 Apple Silicon version of HomeBrew: eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

This command configures your shell environment to identify Homebrew's Homebrew path (/opt/homebrew/bin/brew) in ARM64 (Apple Silicon) version, which is different from the Homebrew path (/usr/local/bin/brew) in x86 version.

Next, we use arm64 version of Homebrew to install the package that initially raised the error message, using the following command:

arch -arm64 brew install asitop

In this example, we are installing asitop, which requires the Apple Silicon architecture to take full advantage of the powermetrics command. The 'arch -arm64' command specifies the architecture to use the command, in this case ARM64, used in Apple Silicon processors (including M1, M2, M3, M4, etc.).

After using the above command, the arm64 version of asitop will be installed and started as expected:

Using the arch command as a prefix is ??not always necessary, but in this case we use it to make sure the commands run in ARM64 mode rather than through x86 mode of Rosetta 2.

Do I need to uninstall and reinstall Homebrew for ARM64?

No, in most cases you just use the above command to switch the PATH of Homebrew to the arm64 version of /opt/homebrew/bin/brew.

The x86 Intel version of Homebrew is located in a different location, i.e. /usr/local/bin/brew.

If you need for some reason, you can switch between the two versions by using the aforementioned command:

Using arm64 version of Homebrew: eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)"

Using x86 version of Homebrew: eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)"

This is usually not necessary for most Homebrew users, but when using game porting kits, wineskin, etc., or some software packages, some Mac users may need to switch between the two.

Have you encountered this error message from Homebrew before, and has the above solution solved your problem? Please tell us your experience on ARM64 Homebrew in the comments.

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