container is a tool that you can use to create and run containers as lightweight virtual machines on your Mac. Linux images run as lightweight Linux VMs, and darwin/arm64 images can run as macOS guest VMs through the macOS runtime. It's written in Swift, and optimized for Apple silicon.
The tool consumes and produces OCI-compatible container images, so you can pull and run images from any standard container registry. You can push images that you build to those registries as well, and run the images in any other OCI-compatible application.
container uses the Containerization Swift package for low-level container, image, and process management.
You need a Mac with Apple silicon to run container. To build it, see the BUILDING document.
container is supported on macOS 26, since it takes advantage of new features and enhancements to virtualization and networking in this release. We do not support older versions of macOS and the container maintainers typically will not address issues that cannot be reproduced on macOS 26.
Download the latest signed installer package for container from the GitHub release page.
To install the tool, double-click the package file and follow the instructions. Enter your administrator password when prompted, to give the installer permission to place the installed files under /usr/local.
Start the system service with:
container system startFor both upgrading and downgrading, you can manually download and install the signed installer package by following the steps from initial install or use the update-container.sh script (installed to /usr/local/bin).
If you're upgrading or downgrading, you must stop your existing container:
container system stopTo upgrade to the latest release, simply run the command below:
/usr/local/bin/update-container.shTo downgrade, you must uninstall your existing container (the -k flag keeps your user data, while -d removes it):
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -k
/usr/local/bin/update-container.sh -v 0.3.0Start the system service with:
container system startIn addition to Linux containers, container can run supported darwin/arm64 macOS guest images with the macOS runtime:
container run --os darwin <image> <command>macOS guest workloads run headless by default. If you need to interact with the guest desktop, add --gui to show the VM in a local window:
container run --os darwin --gui <image>The container macos command group includes tools for preparing a base macOS image from an IPSW, starting an image directory for guest-agent setup or debugging, and packaging a macOS image directory as an OCI layout tar.
Use the uninstall-container.sh script (installed to /usr/local/bin) to remove container from your system. To remove your user data along with the tool, run:
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -dTo retain your user data so that it is available should you reinstall later, run:
/usr/local/bin/uninstall-container.sh -k- Take a guided tour of
containerby building, running, and publishing a simple web server image. - Learn how to use various
containerfeatures. - Read a brief description and technical overview of
container. - Browse the full command reference.
- Build and run
containeron your own development system. - View the project API documentation.
Contributions to container are welcome and encouraged. Please see our main contributing guide for more information.
The container project is currently under active development. Its stability, both for consuming the project as a Swift package and the container tool, is only guaranteed within patch versions, such as between 0.1.1 and 0.1.2. Minor version releases may include breaking changes until we reach a 1.0.0 release.