Updating

Updating means moving to a newer revision of the Home Manager branch that your configuration already follows. For example, a configuration using release-25.11 can update to a newer revision of release-25.11 without changing release branches.

If you want to move from one release branch to another, such as release-25.05 to release-25.11, or between a release branch and master, see Upgrading to a new Home Manager release.

Flake-Based Configurations

Flake inputs are pinned in flake.lock, and Home Manager will keep using the pinned revisions until you update that lock file.

To update all inputs in the flake:

$ nix flake update

To update only specific inputs, name them explicitly:

$ nix flake update home-manager nixpkgs

These commands assume that your current directory is the flake. If not, pass the flake path or URI with --flake <flake-uri>.

After updating the lock file, rebuild with the command for your installation method.

For a standalone Home Manager flake:

$ home-manager switch --flake .

For Home Manager as a NixOS module:

$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .

For Home Manager as a nix-darwin module:

$ darwin-rebuild switch --flake .

Channel-Based Configurations

Channels are mutable references outside the Home Manager configuration itself. Updating a channel moves it to a newer revision of the same channel or branch.

For a standalone Home Manager channel installation, update the user’s channels and then switch:

$ nix-channel --update
…
unpacking channels...
$ home-manager switch

For Home Manager as a NixOS module, update the root user’s Home Manager channel and rebuild the system:

$ sudo nix-channel --update home-manager
$ sudo nixos-rebuild switch

For Home Manager as a nix-darwin module, update the Home Manager channel used by your nix-darwin configuration and rebuild the system:

$ nix-channel --update home-manager
$ darwin-rebuild switch