Steps to make sure you're using Apple Silicon brew instead of Rosetta

I recently figured out I had been using the Rosetta version of VS Code. I am not sure how much better the performance is now with the Apple Silicon version, but I started looking around for ways to eliminate Rosetta from my system. I still had a bunch of things installed through Homebrew. Here are the steps to make sure you’re using the Apple Silicon version of both brew and everything you had installed before.

Check if you’re using Rosetta

which brew

That should return:

/opt/homebrew/bin/brew

if you’re using the Apple Silicon version. If it returns:

/usr/local/bin/brew

then you’re using the Rosetta version. If you’re using the Rosetta version, you can check if you have the Apple Silicon version installed by running

arch -x86_64 brew --version

If you get a version number, you have the Apple Silicon version installed. Then make sure to update your path, as described in this Github issue:

Put eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)" in your ~/.zprofile.

Have brew output everything installed with Rosetta

For CLI tools:

/usr/local/bin/brew brew list

and for GUI apps:

/usr/local/bin/brew list --cask

Output those to a Brewfile

/usr/local/bin/brew bundle dump

Install those items with Apple Silicon brew

brew bundle --file Brewfile

Uninstall the Rosetta brew

From the official instructions, but modified to ensure you’re running the script with Rosetta:

arch -x86_64 /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/uninstall.sh)"

Done.