General Notes on Installing MySQL on macOS In addition to the core installation, the Package Installer also includes Section 2.4.3, “Installing and Using the MySQL Launch Daemon”  and Section 2.4.4, “Installing and Using the MySQL Preference Pane”  to simplify the management of your installation. For additional information on using MySQL on macOS, see Section 2.4.1, “General Notes on Installing MySQL on macOS” . You should keep the following issues and notes in mind: Homebrew : For example, if you installed MySQL Server using Homebrew to its default location then the MySQL installer installs to a different location and won’t upgrade the version from Homebrew. In this scenario you would end up with multiple MySQL installations that, by default, attempt to use the same ports. Stop the other MySQL Server instances before running this installer, such as executing  brew services stop mysql  to stop the Homebrew’s MySQL service. For  tcsh , use: Even better, add  /usr/local/mysql/bin  to your  PATH  environment variable. You can do this by modifying the appropriate startup file for your shell. For more information, see Section 4.2.1, “Invoking MySQL Programs” . 157 • Removing : After you have copied over the MySQL database files from the previous installation and have successfully started the new server, you should consider removing the old installation files to save • Aliases : You might want to add aliases to your shell’s resource file to make it easier to access commonly used programs such as  mysql  and  mysqladmin  from the command line. The syntax for bash  is: • Data : Because the MySQL package installer installs the MySQL contents into a version and platform specific directory, you can use this to upgrade and migrate your database between versions. You need either to copy the  data  directory from the old version to the new version, or to specify an alternative datadir  value to set location of the data directory. By default, the MySQL directories are installed under /usr/local/ . • Users : You may need (or want) to create a specific  mysql  user to own the MySQL directory and data. You can do this through the  Directory Utility , and the  mysql  user should already exist. For use in single user mode, an entry for  _mysql  (note the underscore prefix) should already exist within the system  /etc/passwd  file. • Launchd : A launchd daemon is installed that alters MySQL configuration options. Consider editing it if needed, see the documentation below for additional information. Also, macOS 10.10 removed startup item support in favor of launchd daemons. The optional MySQL preference pane under macOS  System Preferences  uses the launchd daemon. • Other MySQL installations : The installation procedure does not recognize MySQL installations by package managers such as Homebrew. The installation and upgrade process is for MySQL packages provided by us. If other installations are present, then consider stopping them before executing this installer to avoid port conflicts. 2.4.1 General Notes on Installing MySQL on macOS alias mysql=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql alias mysqladmin=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin alias mysql /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql alias mysqladmin /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin