Install Mendeley Desktop for Mac with Homebrew

Recently I noticed that the official Homebrew Cask removed the Mendeley Desktop app for Mac from their repository.

That makes sense because this app hasn’t been updated for a very long time and has actually been replaced by the new Mendeley Reference Manager app.

But maybe you’re currently writing a paper and still want to use the Mendeley Desktop app until your paper is accepted or you graduate. If that’s the case, you can still install it using the Homebrew package manager through a Homebrew Tap that I manage.

If you want to install the Mendeley Desktop app for Mac using Homebrew, here’s how.

Tap the Homebrew mirror I maintain:

brew tap junian/homebrew-mirrors

Then install it with this command:

brew install mendeley-desktop-app

Open it directly from the Terminal:

open "/Applications/Mendeley Desktop.app/"

macOS Gatekeeper may prevent it from opening because this app wasn’t notarized. But it’s signed with an official Apple Developer account by “Mendeley Ltd. (A43FW9RYK2)”, so you don’t need to worry about its authenticity.

You just need to follow my guide on how to open blocked macOS app.

Once you’re done, you can sign in using your account and start using it as your reference manager.

There could be another issue where you can’t install the Microsoft Word plugin. Again, no need to worry. You can install the Mendeley Desktop MS Word Plugin manually.

After that, you can continue writing and updating references easily using Mendeley Desktop for Mac.

Thanks for reading, and hopefully it’s useful for your writing.