In my tests, Kitematic came in most useful for deleting troublesome containers whose installation I'd somehow botched. Open the docker.dmg file you downloaded, and drag the Docker app's cartoon whale icon into your Applications folder. Your Mac needs to be running Mac OS Sierra or later, and have at least 4GB of RAM. It's got everything you'll need to run Docker in one Mac-friendly installer. Once you've signed up and signed in to Docker Hub, get Docker Desktop for Mac. Sign up for a Docker account with a unique Docker ID, your email, and a strong password. Create a Docker Hub accountĭocker Hub keeps track of the containers you're running (or creating) and provides a one-stop shop to find new ones. Pi-hole can automatically block Web ads across your entire home network, and Docker's the only way to get it working on a Mac without also having a Raspberry Pi.

Running them in containers only makes sense if you like the technical challenge, want to keep a single app from hogging all your system's memory, or want to ensure that any malware you might pick up while browsing the web stays stuck inside its container, unable to escape to the rest of your Mac.Īs of this writing, the main reason I've found to run Docker on a Mac is Pi-hole, originally made for the Raspberry Pi. But most of these apps already have native Mac versions. There are Docker versions of familiar desktop apps like Firefox, Chrome, Skype, Spotify, image editor GiMP, and audio editor Audacity. Who is Docker for?Īs mentioned above, Docker's mainly aimed at programmers who want to containerize existing apps or write new ones, and businesses and IT folks who want to use its industrial-grade software. Once you fire up the easy-to-install Docker app, it runs in the background, and you can use the Terminal or another app called Kitematic (we'll get to that later) to install and run containerized apps.

Download docker on mac