diff --git a/brew_packages.txt b/brew_packages.txt
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e9c365d70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/brew_packages.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+bash-completion
+bind
+chromedriver
+cmatrix
+coreutils
+cowsay
+gdbm
+gettext
+httpie
+jq
+json-c
+libstfl
+newsbeuter
+oniguruma
+openssl
+pidof
+pup
+python
+readline
+recode
+shc
+sqlite
+tree
+wget
+xz
+zsh-syntax-highlighting
diff --git a/clean_downloads_folder.sh b/clean_downloads_folder.sh
new file mode 100755
index 000000000..d29570d71
--- /dev/null
+++ b/clean_downloads_folder.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+# delete files in ~/Downloads
+rm -r ~/Downloads/*
+