Getting started

Install Berthly, set up Apple's container daemon, and run your first container.

Requirements

  • An Apple Silicon Mac. Apple’s container runs Linux containers in lightweight VMs and requires Apple Silicon — Intel Macs are not supported.
  • macOS 26 or later.
  • Apple’s container daemon — but you don’t need to install it first. Berthly can do that for you (see below).

Install Berthly

  1. Download the latest Berthly-<version>.dmg from Releases.
  2. Open the DMG and drag Berthly.app into Applications.
  3. Launch Berthly.

The app is Developer ID–signed and notarized by Apple, so it opens without warnings. Updates arrive in-app afterwards — Berthly → Check for Updates…

Running v1.0? Update to v1.0.1 or later — the v1.0 zip had a packaging flaw. See Troubleshooting if you hit “Berthly.app is damaged”.

First launch: the daemon

Berthly is a GUI for Apple’s container daemon. On first launch:

  • If the daemon isn’t installed, Berthly offers a guided install of Apple’s signed container toolchain — no terminal needed.
  • If the daemon is installed but stopped, Berthly starts it and monitors it for you. The status is always visible at the bottom of the sidebar.

Already use the CLI? Nothing changes: Berthly drives the same daemon over XPC — same images, same containers, same Keychain credentials. Use the GUI and container commands interchangeably.

Run your first container

  1. Press ⌘K and type run — or click Run in the toolbar.
  2. Pick an image (pull one from a registry if the library is empty), set a name and ports if you need them, and hit Run.
  3. Select the container in the Compute list to watch live CPU, memory, and network charts — or jump to its Logs and Terminal tabs with ⌘⌥2 and ⌘⌥3.

From here, explore the sidebar: Compute, Volumes, Networks, Images, Registries, and System — or read the keyboard shortcuts to move around without the mouse.

Troubleshooting →