Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Liam Sharp · A desktop website crawler for technical SEO audits, finding crawl issues and reviewing site structure and page elements.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a Developer Tools app for Mac.
About
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is a desktop website crawler for technical SEO audits. It crawls a site and reports issues and opportunities that can affect SEO, website health, and user experience.
- Finds broken links, HTTP errors, redirects, and redirect chains.
- Reviews page titles, meta descriptions, headings, duplicate content, robots directives, and canonical URLs.
- Can render JavaScript-driven pages, extract page data with XPath, CSS selectors, or regex, and create XML sitemaps.
- Presents crawl and site-structure visualisations; the official site also describes crawl comparisons and integrations with Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights.
Install the macOS app with brew install --cask screaming-frog-seo-spider, then open Screaming Frog SEO Spider from Applications. The official site describes a free version limited to 500 URLs per crawl; saving crawls, JavaScript rendering, custom extraction, and API integrations are among features restricted in that version. A licence removes the URL limit and enables advanced features. The supplied Homebrew package is the app, not a separate command-line crawler. The app requires macOS.
Sources: Product overview and free-version limits · Homebrew cask
New What’s new in 24.3 From Homebrew commits
This release has no separate notes.
Install and uninstall
Homebrew installs the app in your Applications folder.
Install without Homebrew
Download the file Homebrew uses for your chip: Apple siliconIntel
SHA-256 only checks that the download is complete; it is not a security certification. See the SHA-256 and download address
$ brew uninstall --cask \screaming-frog-seo-spiderA regular uninstall removes the app and keeps its settings and caches.
$ brew uninstall --zap --cask \screaming-frog-seo-spider--zap also deletes the settings, caches and other files listed in the Homebrew definition. They can include data shared with other apps and cannot be restored, and it does not guarantee that nothing is left.See which files are removed
Facts and sources
- Version 24.3
- Recorded by Homebrew on Jun 29
Questions
Is Screaming Frog SEO Spider safe?
Screaming Frog SEO Spider is in Homebrew’s official catalog and has not been disabled. Since September 2026, Homebrew disables apps that fail macOS Gatekeeper checks. When installing, Homebrew checks the download from download.screamingfrog.co.uk against its SHA-256 checksum. It was installed 107 times through Homebrew in the last 30 days.
How do I completely uninstall Screaming Frog SEO Spider on a Mac?
Run brew uninstall --cask screaming-frog-seo-spider. To delete its settings and caches as well, run brew uninstall --zap --cask screaming-frog-seo-spider. That also deletes 2 files and folders, including ~/.
Does Screaming Frog SEO Spider run on Apple silicon (M1 and later) Macs?
Yes. Homebrew downloads separate builds for Apple silicon and Intel Macs.
Where does Screaming Frog SEO Spider store its settings and data?
Its data is in ~/ and ~/. These locations come from Homebrew’s clean-up list.
What is the latest version of Screaming Frog SEO Spider?
The latest version is 24.3, added to Homebrew on Jun 29. Run brew upgrade --cask screaming-frog-seo-spider to update it.