If you’re a React-Native developer and you’re running into this error when attempting to run your Metro bundler, “too many open files,” the fix is really simple: You need to install watchman.

$ brew install watchman

While setting up my new company issued MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon, I thought this error had something to do with the new chipset and Rosetta, but this did not turn out to be the case. All I ended up having to do was install watchman, which we accidentally removed from our company’s README.

Well I was really hoping for this blog post to be a little bit longer, but that’s all I’ve got! Install watchman and then restart the Metro bundler and you should be good to go.