Install Liquibase on macOS

Last updated: September 2, 2025

Before you begin

Confirm that Java is installed. If you use the Liquibase Installer, Java is included automatically.

Critical change: If you are an existing Liquibase Secure user, the brew install liquibase formula may still exist from versions before Liquibase 4.33, but the command will not install Liquibase 5.x +. To access the Liquibase Secure features, you must use brew install --cask liquibase-secure to maintain enterprise functionality when upgrading to 5.x.

Procedure

1

Download Liquibase.

1. Navigate to our Liquibase Community downloads page.

2. Select the Mac/Linux/Unix option and click the Download Archive .tar.gz or .zip button.

This will begin the download.

3. Double-click the .tar.gz or .zip file to extract the contents after the download completes.

2

Move the files to your desired location.

Make sure the files are in the location where you want the Liquibase installation to be stored.

For example, /opt/liquibase.

3

Add Liquibase to your system PATH.

To run Liquibase commands from any terminal window, you must add the Liquibase to your system PATH. For detailed instructions, macOS, Linux, and Unix users can use this guide to adding a directory to your PATH.

When following the guide, be sure to add the export line to your shell config file.

~/.zshrc if you're using Zsh (default on macOS 10.15+)

~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile if you're using Bash (common on Linux and other Unix systems)

Be sure to replace /usr/local with the path to your Liquibase installation.

Example line to add:

export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/liquibase"

After saving the file, apply your changes by restarting your terminal or running:

source ~/.zshrc # or ~/.bashrc

4

Verify Liquibase has been added to your system PATH.

Once added, open a new Command Prompt and run:

liquibase --version

If it returns the version number, Liquibase is installed and ready to use.