Berthly for Mac: A Native GUI for Apple Containers

Berthly is a native Mac interface for Apple’s container tooling: build images, run Linux containers and lightweight machines, and inspect logs without living in Terminal. It is a GUI on top of Apple’s container daemon, not a replacement runtime.

A Mac GUI for Apple’s container stack

The app brings Apple’s container commands into a menu-bar utility and a full SwiftUI window. It needs Apple Silicon and macOS 26 or later because Apple’s containers run Linux in lightweight virtual machines.

Berthly can guide installation of Apple’s signed container toolchain and help start its daemon. You still depend on that underlying Apple software, so check its version as well as Berthly’s.

Build and pull images without losing context

Browse local images, pull from a registry, build from a Dockerfile, and inspect image layers and metadata. Drag a Dockerfile or Containerfile from Finder to open a build sheet with its context and file path filled in.

Berthly remembers the context and options from each image build, so a rebuild can be started without re-entering the same setup. The app presents the workflow visually while Apple’s container tooling does the underlying work.

Manage containers, machines, and live logs

Create and run containers, inspect their details, and stream logs in the window. You can also create and manage lightweight machines, choose a kernel, and inspect their resources.

A terminal is integrated with the selected container, and per-container CPU, memory, and network charts provide a quick status view. The project describes this as a GUI for Apple’s runtime rather than a separate container engine.

Networks, volumes, and registry credentials

Create, list, and remove networks and volumes from the interface. Registry workflows include pulling and pushing images, signing in to private registries, and managing saved registry hosts.

Berthly says registry credentials use the same macOS Keychain items as Apple’s container CLI and are not stored elsewhere by the app. Network access to registries is visible in the actions you choose.

Keyboard-first controls and a menu-bar monitor

The menu-bar presence offers quick status and controls, while the command palette jumps to actions from the keyboard. Shortcuts switch between the app’s main sections and detail tabs.

Favorites can stay visible in the menu bar, and Berthly can notify you when a pinned container or machine changes state while you are working elsewhere.

Long-running builds and image updates

Closing a build sheet does not stop the build. A toolbar indicator keeps track of progress and surfaces failures, so you can continue working in another part of the app.

Berthly can periodically compare pulled image tags with their registries and flag stale images and containers. “Recreate with Latest Image” pulls the newer image and rebuilds the container with its existing configuration and volumes.

Image and volume views show reclaimable-space badges and offer pruning with confirmation. Review the target before pruning: removing unused resources is a cleanup action, not a substitute for checking what a development environment still needs.

Local operation, with explicit network boundaries

The project says Berthly communicates with the local container daemon over XPC and includes no telemetry, analytics, or crash reporting. Registry pulls, pushes, and sign-ins go to the registries you configure.

Outside those registry actions, the README lists GitHub release checks for Sparkle updates and Apple’s signed installer downloads when you use the guided container install or upgrade flow. Update checks can be disabled in Settings.

Berthly is not sandboxed because it manages the daemon and launchctl and works with local build contexts and volume mounts. Its source is public, but that broad local access is still worth understanding before granting access to project files.

The v1.4.1 security fix includes the daemon

Berthly v1.4.1 builds against Apple container 1.4.1 and containerization 0.45.0. Its release notes describe a moderate OCI image-loading issue where crafted archive paths could follow symlinks outside the extraction directory; the relevant advisory is GHSA-4587-w9mm-xxvh.

Updating the Berthly app alone is not enough to receive that fix. The vulnerable extraction runs inside the container daemon, so the installed Apple container toolchain must also be version 1.4.1; Berthly’s release adds a blocking version gate and a one-click in-place upgrade.

The release notes also say the fix updates containerization to 0.45.0 and tightens the minimum-version check. When using OCI tar import, verify both the Berthly release and the daemon version rather than assuming the GUI update changed the runtime.

Requirements and installation

Berthly targets Apple Silicon Macs on macOS 26 or later. Apple’s container toolchain must be installed and running; the app can guide that setup, but does not remove the dependency.

There is no App Store listing. The project provides a direct DMG from GitHub Releases and says the app is Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple, so macOS should open it without a Gatekeeper warning. Updates are available in the app.

Download the verified v1.4.1 release

The v1.4.1 DMG’s SHA-256 is eb4788c92aba0760cd7b9f531821d9261f11125677c515b80b034697a7bb4aeb. It matched the official GitHub Release metadata and macOS disk-image verification passed; the image could not be mounted in this review environment, and the app was not installed or launched.

Download the official Berthly v1.4.1 DMG or read the release notes first. Berthly is a useful fit if you want a visual workflow for Apple’s containers, especially when you also keep the underlying container daemon updated.

Official Berthly v1.4.1 DMG: https://github.com/henrywang/Berthly/releases/download/v1.4.1/Berthly-1.4.1.dmg
Release notes: https://github.com/henrywang/Berthly/releases/tag/v1.4.1
SHA-256: eb4788c92aba0760cd7b9f531821d9261f11125677c515b80b034697a7bb4aeb
Requires Apple Silicon, macOS 26+, and Apple container 1.4.1 for the v1.4.1 security fix.