# Install mecab with Homebrew, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix Yet another part-of-speech and morphological analyzer. Version 0.996 via Homebrew; verified 2026-06-16. ## Install ```sh sudo av install brew:mecab ``` Additional install commands: ### macOS - Homebrew (100%): ```sh brew install mecab ``` Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata - MacPorts (94%): ```sh sudo port install mecab ``` Evidence: MacPorts ports tree: textproc/mecab/Portfile from https://api.github.com/repos/macports/macports-ports/git/trees/master?recursive=1 ### Linux - Debian apt (92%): ```sh sudo apt install libmecab-dev ``` Evidence: Debian stable package indexes: libmecab-dev from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz - dnf (92%): ```sh sudo dnf install mecab ``` Evidence: Fedora Rawhide package metadata: mecab from https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/development/rawhide/Everything/x86_64/os/repodata/e5ca8ce900cd68f5419e1c39ae517343100b306336cbaeb70a3c153121d95094-primary.xml.zst - Nix (92%): ```sh nix profile install nixpkgs#mecab ``` Evidence: nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/me/mecab/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1 ## Package facts - **Package key:** brew:mecab - **Package manager:** Homebrew - **Package manager page:** - **Version:** 0.996 - **Source summary:** Yet another part-of-speech and morphological analyzer - **Homepage:** - **Repository:** - **Upstream docs:** - **License:** GPL-2.0-only OR LGPL-2.1-only OR BSD-3-Clause - **Source archive:** - **Last updated:** 2026-06-16T20:46:20Z - **Generated:** 2026-07-08T07:18:31+00:00 ## Executables - mecab (cli) - mecab-config (cli) - mecab (alias) - mecab-config (alias) ## Install behavior - Post-install hook: not defined - Bottle: available on arm64_linux, arm64_sequoia, arm64_sonoma, arm64_tahoe, sonoma, x86_64_linux ## Freshness - Page generated: 2026-07-08 - Package-manager version: 0.996 - Package-manager updated: 2026-06-16 - Local data: ok - Upstream repository: https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - info: Release/tag comparison is only available for GitHub repositories. ## Project history and usage MeCab is a Japanese part-of-speech and morphological analyzer. The official documentation describes it as an open-source engine developed through the Kyoto University Graduate School of Informatics and NTT Communication Science Laboratories joint research unit project. ### Project history MeCab was designed to be independent of language, dictionary, and corpus, using Conditional Random Fields for parameter estimation. Its documentation contrasts this with ChaSen's hidden Markov model and states that MeCab is faster on average than ChaSen, Juman, and KAKASI. The release history in the official documentation starts with MeCab 0.90 as the initial release on 2006-03-26. Version 0.93 in July 2006 changed the license to a GPL, LGPL, or BSD triple-license model, and later releases added faster dictionary compilation, HMM training support, partial parsing APIs, retraining, and user dictionary cost estimation. ### Adoption history Official downloads separate the engine from dictionaries such as IPA, Juman, and UniDic, and list bindings for Perl, Ruby, Python, and Java. The input package facts show broad package-manager coverage across Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, MacPorts, and Nix, reflecting MeCab's long-lived role as infrastructure for Japanese NLP. ### How it is used The docs cover direct parsing, wakati output, output-format customization, character-set changes, N-best output, adding words, dictionary format details, unknown-word handling, partial parsing, soft-wakati output, the C/C++ library interface, and script-language bindings. The command-line tools `mecab` and `mecab-config` expose those capabilities to packages and build scripts. ### Why package nerds care MeCab is a classic package-manager NLP dependency: small native engine, separate dictionaries, command-line interface, C/C++ library, and bindings. It is especially important because many downstream Japanese text tools depend on the stable `mecab` executable and dictionary layout rather than embedding an analyzer. ### Timeline - 2006: MeCab 0.90 initial release. - 2006: MeCab 0.93 changes licensing to GPL, LGPL, or BSD. - 2012: MeCab 0.994 adds retraining and automatic user-dictionary cost estimation. - 2013: MeCab 0.996 fixes iconv linking and adds user-dictionary CSV cost/context generation. ### Related projects - ChaSen, Juman, KAKASI, IPA dictionary, Juman dictionary, UniDic, mecab-ko. ### Sources - - - - source_facts.package-manager ## Security Notes narrow executable package without higher-risk signals. - **Geiger risk:** green / low - narrow executable package without higher-risk signals ## Source Database Details - **Source Database:** Homebrew formula API - **Tap:** homebrew/core - **Full Name:** mecab - **Version Scheme:** 0 - **Revision:** 0 - **Conflicts With:** mecab-ko - **Bottle Stable Root URL:** - **Deprecated:** no - **Disabled:** no - **Keg Only:** no - **URL Keys:** stable ## Other Package-Manager Records - Debian apt - libmecab-dev - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libmecab-dev from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Header files of Mecab | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - libmecab-java - 0.996-15.1: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libmecab-java from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | mecab binding for Java - java classes | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - libmecab-jni - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libmecab-jni from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | mecab binding for Java - native interface | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - libmecab-perl - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libmecab-perl from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Mecab binding for Perl | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - libmecab2 - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: libmecab2 from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Libraries of Mecab | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - mecab - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: mecab from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Japanese morphological analysis system | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - mecab-utils - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: mecab-utils from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Support programs of Mecab | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - python3-mecab - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: python3-mecab from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Mecab binding for Python3 | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Debian apt - ruby-mecab - 0.996-15.1+b6: normalized package name match | Debian stable package indexes: ruby-mecab from https://deb.debian.org/debian/dists/stable/main/binary-amd64/Packages.xz | Mecab binding for Ruby language | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Nix - mecab: normalized package name match | nixpkgs package indexes: pkgs/by-name/me/mecab/package.nix from https://api.github.com/repos/NixOS/nixpkgs/git/trees/master?recursive=1 - Ubuntu apt - libmecab-dev - 0.996-14ubuntu4: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libmecab-dev from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | Header files of Mecab | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Ubuntu apt - libmecab-java - 0.996-14ubuntu4: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libmecab-java from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | mecab binding for Java - java classes | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Ubuntu apt - libmecab-jni - 0.996-14ubuntu4: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libmecab-jni from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | mecab binding for Java - native interface | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Ubuntu apt - libmecab-perl - 0.996-14ubuntu4: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libmecab-perl from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | Mecab binding for Perl | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Ubuntu apt - libmecab2 - 0.996-14ubuntu4: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: libmecab2 from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/main/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | Libraries of Mecab | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ - Ubuntu apt - mecab - 0.996-14ubuntu4: normalized package name match | Ubuntu 24.04 LTS package indexes: mecab from https://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/noble/universe/binary-amd64/Packages.gz | Japanese morphological analysis system | https://taku910.github.io/mecab/ ## Related links - [Source-control packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/source-control-tools/) - Belongs to a source-control command family. - [Terminal utility packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/terminal-utilities/) - Matched terminal and command-line workflow metadata. - [Text processing packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/text-processing-tools/) - Matched text, document, or structured-data processing metadata. - [Language runtime packages](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/language-runtime-packages/) - Matched language runtime, compiler, or interpreter metadata. - [cabocha](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/cabocha/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [groonga](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/groonga/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [mecab-ipadic](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mecab-ipadic/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [mecab-jumandic](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mecab-jumandic/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [mecab-unidic](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mecab-unidic/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [mecab-unidic-extended](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mecab-unidic-extended/) - Popular package that depends on this formula. - [mitie](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mitie/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing, nlp. - [sentencepiece](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/sentencepiece/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing, nlp. - [stanford-corenlp](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/stanford-corenlp/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing, nlp. - [stanford-ner](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/stanford-ner/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing, nlp. - [stanford-parser](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/stanford-parser/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing, nlp. - [yamcha](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/yamcha/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing, nlp. - [mallet](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/mallet/) - Shares av.db curated category or tags: cli, data, natural-language-processing. - [jumanpp](https://www.automicvault.com/pkg/brew/jumanpp/) - Local package facts share a topical domain. Shared terms: analysis, analyzer, cli, japanese, language. ## Combined YAML source View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/mecab.yml](https://github.com/automic-vault/db/blob/main/combined/mecab.yml) ## Sources - Nucleus package database - Geiger risk classifier - package-page enrichment - curated package history - package version freshness - av.db category and tag curation - package relationship graph - external package-manager database matches - cross-ecosystem install command graph