---
title: Apple container
description: Run Nextflow pipeline tasks in Apple container virtual machines on macOS.
---

# Apple container

<AddedInVersion version="26.04" />

[Apple container](https://github.com/apple/container) is a lightweight container runtime that uses the [Virtualization framework](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization) to run each container inside its own virtual machine on macOS.

## Prerequisites

Apple container requires Apple silicon (M1 or newer) and a recent macOS release.

Start the system service before running your pipeline:

```bash
container system start
```

## How it works

Enable Apple container in the Nextflow configuration file:

```groovy
appleContainer.enabled = true
process.container = 'nextflow/examples:latest'
```

Whenever your pipeline launches a task, Nextflow runs it inside a container created from the specified image using the `container run` command.

Each container runs in its own lightweight virtual machine. This isolates tasks without the overhead of running a full virtual machine for each one. Images are standard OCI images that you can pull from any registry.

:::note
Apple container only supports Linux images. To run an `amd64` image on Apple silicon, pass `--rosetta` via `appleContainer.runOptions` and set the platform explicitly, for example, `process.arch = 'linux/amd64'`.
:::

## Advanced settings

See the [`appleContainer`][config-apple-container] configuration scope for advanced Apple container settings.

[config-apple-container]: ../reference/config/apple-container
