Installation

Install ArcBox Desktop on macOS.

System Requirements

ArcBox Desktop requires macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later on Apple Silicon (M1 or later) with at least 4 GB of available memory.

Install

brew install --cask arcbox

Download the latest .dmg from arcbox.dev/download. Open the disk image and drag ArcBox to your Applications folder.

First Launch

Authorize the Privileged Helper

ArcBox requests permission to install a privileged helper. This helper manages the Docker socket symlink, CLI tools, and DNS configuration. It runs with minimal privileges and only performs validated operations. See Helper for details.

Initialize the Runtime

ArcBox creates a lightweight VM on demand. This takes a few seconds the first time and is near-instant afterward.

Install CLI Tools (Optional)

ArcBox can install the arcbox and docker CLI commands to /usr/local/bin. You can skip this and do it later from Settings.

Verify

Open ArcBox Desktop. If you see the container list (even if empty), the runtime is ready.

From the terminal:

arcbox status

You should see the daemon status and VM state.

Uninstall

Remove the App

Drag ArcBox from Applications to Trash.

Remove the Helper

sudo /Library/PrivilegedHelperTools/dev.arcbox.helper uninstall

Remove Data

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/ArcBox

Next Steps

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