MacOS – Why /usr/local/bin is showing as a file in mac

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I purchased a new mac and want to install some tools on it but when I try to install anything, I am getting error as bin is not a folder . I am on 11.1 and have not updated it to 11.4 yet.

Well why /bin inside my path /usr/local/ is a file not folder, isn't it supposed to be a folder???

I tried moving current /bin which is as a file to another location and created a folder as /bin inside /usr/local/ path.

But this made my mac not working properly, so I had to reinstall Macos.

I am very confused over this and because of this problem I am unable to install anything in my mac, someone please help.

$ ls -dl /usr/local/bin
-rwxr-xr-x@ 1 username  wheel  xxxxxxxx Sep 26 06:36 /usr/local/bin

Here is the output for " ls -ledO /usr/local/bin /usr/local "

drwxr-xr-x  16 root  wheel  sunlnk      512 Dec 27 20:57 /usr/local
-rwxr-xr-x@  1 bala  wheel  -      82560592 Sep 26 06:36 /usr/local/bin

my bin is showing as exec file like this

enter image description here

Best Answer

This is definitively not how it should be, but without a lot of additional analysis it's impossible to figure out what else is wrong. So to be on the safe said, I would

  • create two good, verified backups
  • do a clean install (not an upgrade)
  • restore Applications and user directories from Time Machine
  • install Homebrew from scratch.
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