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# Switching from one Mac to another and Homebrew issues
- URL: https://helpmonks.com/blog/switching-from-one-mac-to-another-and-homebrew-issues/
- Published: 2012-10-31T00:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-04T01:57:41.000Z
- Description: As I've just switched from one Mac to another I've experienced an issue with the Homebrew installation. Whatever I did I received a message of; > fatal: Unab
- Author: Nitai
- Tags: email marketing

As I’ve just switched from one Mac to another I’ve experienced an issue with the Homebrew installation. Whatever I did I received a message of;

> fatal: Unable to create ‘/usr/local/.git/index.lock’: Permission denied

or something like;

> Permission denied – /usr/local/opt/pkg-config

As I’ve migrated all user accounts and applications it should have done everything for me, right? Well, as it turns out the /usr/local directory was owned by another user (the initial user even thought the user was removed). In short, you have to change the permission with:

\[code\]sudo chown -R (user):admin /usr/local\[/code\]

(you need to replace the (user) above with your user name)

Voila. All works again.