In this article, we will look at how to install Docker on Mac OS and make it running. Local installation is also referred to as Docker desktop.
If you are on Windows or Linux systems, you can skip this article.


Installing Docker on Mac OS is relatively easy as compared to Windows. Head over to this link and you should see something as below

Download Docker for Mac OS

Click the button to download the installer for Mac. This will be a .dmg file.
After the download completes, click the downloaded file. It will start extracting and once extracted, you will see

Installing Docker on Mac OS

Drag the Docker icon to Applications folder as the arrow indicates.
Note that you require adminstrator permissions to do so and it will ask you for system password.

After you drag and drop, wait for a minute or two as it installs Docker and creates its launcher in Applications folder.
Go to /Applications and double click Docker icon, you will see Docker symbol at the top right hand side of your screen.

To verify if Docker is installed, open terminal window and type command

docker version

You will get below output, if Docker is successfully installed.

Client: Docker Engine – Community
  Cloud integration: 1.0.4
  Version:           20.10.0
  API version:       1.41
  Go version:        go1.13.15
  Git commit:        7287ab3
  Built:             Tue Dec  8 18:55:43 2020
  OS/Arch:           darwin/amd64
  Context:           default
  Experimental:      true

Server: Docker Engine – Community
  Engine:
    Version:          20.10.0
    API version:      1.41 (minimum version 1.12)
  Go version:       go1.13.15
Git commit:       eeddea2
  Built:            Tue Dec  8 18:58:04 2020
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
containerd:
  Version:          v1.4.3
  GitCommit:        269548fa27e0089a8b8278fc4fc781d7f65a939b
runc:
  Version:          1.0.0-rc92
  GitCommit:        ff819c7e9184c13b7c2607fe6c30ae19403a7aff
docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0

It shows Docker server and client versions and much other details.

This single installer comes with Docker client, Docker engine, Kuberetes, Docker compose etc.

You can check this by typing below command on terminal

docker-compose version

and you will get

docker-compose version 1.27.4, build 40524192
docker-py version: 4.3.1
CPython version: 3.7.7
OpenSSL version: OpenSSL 1.1.1g  21 Apr 2020


Docker System Requirements
Below is the system configuration required to install Docker on mac os
1. OS version should be 10.14 or higher. Docker Desktop currently supports macOS Mojave, macOS Catalina, and macOS Big Sur.
2. Minimum 4GB RAM.
3. Mac Hardware should be manufactured after 2010.
Check out detailed requirements here.