Go to brave.com/download and click the “Get Brave for macOS” button. The page automatically detects your operating system, so the Mac version will be offered by default.

The download is a .dmg disk image file, approximately 200–250 MB. Save it to your Downloads folder and wait for the download to finish before moving to the next step.

Open your Downloads folder and double-click the Brave-Browser.dmg file to mount it. A Finder window will open showing the Brave Browser icon alongside a shortcut to your Applications folder.

Drag the Brave Browser icon into the Applications folder. Wait a few seconds for the copy to finish, then eject the disk image by right-clicking it in the sidebar and selecting Eject. Brave is now installed on your Mac.

Open your Applications folder (or Launchpad) and double-click Brave Browser. On the first launch, macOS will show a confirmation dialog: “Brave Browser is an app downloaded from the internet. Are you sure you want to open it?” — click Open to continue. This is a standard macOS check and only appears once.

Brave will open immediately. The first-launch setup screen appears, walking you through a short welcome flow where you can choose your default search engine and privacy preferences.

During the welcome flow, Brave offers to import your bookmarks, saved passwords, history, and extensions from Chrome, Safari, or Firefox. Select your current browser from the list and click Import — everything transfers in under a minute with no data loss.

You can also import later at any time via Brave menu → Bookmarks → Import Bookmarks and Settings. This is especially useful if you’re switching from Chrome — the transition is seamless since both browsers share the same Chromium foundation.

To make Brave open links from other apps automatically, set it as your default browser. Go to System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Default web browser and select Brave Browser from the dropdown.

Alternatively, Brave will prompt you to set it as default the first time you open it — simply click “Set as Default” in that banner and macOS will handle the rest.

Click the Brave Shields icon (the lion logo) in the address bar on any page to see what’s been blocked and adjust settings per site. If a site breaks because of blocked scripts, you can lower the shield level just for that domain without disabling protection globally — a much smarter approach than turning off your adblocker entirely.

Go to Settings → Search engine and switch to Brave Search. Unlike Google, Brave Search uses its own independent index — it doesn’t track your queries, build a profile, or sell your data. For most everyday searches, the results are comparable to Google and improving rapidly in 2026.

Brave includes a built-in Private Window with Tor mode — go to File → New Private Window with Tor (or press ⌥⌘N). This routes your traffic through the Tor network, hiding your IP address from websites you visit. It’s slower than a standard window, but significantly more private than any regular incognito mode.

Open the Chrome Web Store in Brave and install any extension just as you would in Chrome — Brave supports the full Chrome extension ecosystem. Go to Settings → Extensions → Get more extensions to be taken directly to the store. Extensions like 1Password, Grammarly, Bitwarden, and Dark Reader all work perfectly in Brave.

Brave has its own encrypted sync system that doesn’t require an account — go to Settings → Brave Sync → Start using Sync. You’ll get a sync code (a QR code or passphrase) that you enter on your other devices. Your bookmarks, history, extensions, and passwords sync end-to-end encrypted across Mac, iPhone, Android, and Windows — no Brave account or cloud storage involved.

Brave updates itself silently in the background — you rarely need to do anything. To check or force an update manually, go to Brave menu (☰) → Help → About Brave. If an update is available, it downloads and installs automatically. Always stay on the latest version for the newest privacy protections and security patches.