Which directory is the real location that `brew cask install` uses?

Question

Which directory is the real location that brew cask install uses?

I want to find the real location of app, not the symlink in /Application

Solution 1

You can find custom commands for each application amongst available Casks, but generally, brew cask install just retrieves the configured version of the executable file and moves it to the specified application directory (~/Applications by default).

/usr/local/Caskroom contains the list of casks installed, and .metadata folder in each cask mentions the cask file used during installation.

The app directory you see in ~/Applications is not a symlink. If it is so, check that app's cask file and it should contain clues to the real location.

Solution 2

Furthermore, apart from what @Subhash Bhushan explained, if you want to know where exactly a formula has been installed you can use the command info

brew cask info formula

For example for atom:

brew cask info atom

atom: 1.32.2 (auto_updates)
https://atom.io/
/usr/local/Caskroom/atom/1.32.2 (64B)
From: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-cask/blob/master/Casks/atom.rb
==> Name
Github Atom
==> Artifacts
Atom.app (App)
/Users/username/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/apm/bin/apm (Binary)
/Users/username/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/atom.sh -> atom (Binary)

In this example, the artifact is installed in ~/Appplications.