Here I’ll show you how to get SQL Server up and running on your Mac in less than half an hour. And the best part is, you’ll have SQL Server running locally without needing any virtualization software.

Prior to SQL Server 2017, if you wanted to run SQL Server on your Mac, you first had to create a virtual machine (using VirtualBox, Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, or Bootcamp), then install Windows onto that VM, then finally SQL Server. This is still a valid option depending on your requirements (here’s how to install SQL Server on a Mac with VirtualBox if you’d like to try that method).

Starting with SQL Server 2017, you can now install SQL Server directly on to a Linux machine. And because macOS is Unix based (and Linux is Unix based), you can run SQL Server for Linux on your Mac. The way to do this is to run SQL Server on Docker.

So let’s go ahead and install Docker. Then we’ll download and install SQL Server.

1. Install Docker

   Download the (free) Docker Community Edition for Mac (unless you’ve already got it installed on your system). This will enable you to run SQL Server from within a Docker container.

   To download, visit the Docker CE for Mac download page and click Get Docker.

   To install, double-click on the .dmg file and then drag the Docker.app icon to your Application folder.

   What is Docker?

   Docker is a platform that enables software to run in its own isolated environment. SQL Server (from 2017) can be run on Docker in its own isolated container. Once Docker is installed, you simply download — or “pull” — the SQL Server on Linux Docker Image to your Mac, then run it as a Docker container. This container is an isolated environment that contains everything SQL Server needs to run.

2. Launch Docker

   Launch Docker the same way you’d launch any other application (eg, via the Applications folder, the Launchpad, etc).

   When you open Docker, you might be prompted for your password so that Docker can install its networking components and links to the Docker apps. Go ahead and provide your password, as Docker needs this to run.

3. Increase the Memory (optional)

   By default, Docker will have 2GB of memory allocated to it. SQL Server needs at least 2GB. However, it won’t hurt to increase it if you can.

   In my case, I increased it to 4GB.

   To do this, select Preferences from the little Docker icon in the top menu:

   Then finish off by clicking Apply & Restart

4. Download SQL Server

   Now that Docker is installed, we can download and install SQL Server for Linux.

   Open a Terminal window and run the following command.

   This downloads the latest SQL Server 2019 for Linux Docker image to your computer.

   You can also check for the latest container version on the Docker website if you wish.

5. Launch the Docker Image

   Run the following command to launch an instance of the Docker image you just downloaded:

   But of course, use your own name and password. Also, if you downloaded a different Docker image, replace mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest with the one you downloaded.

   Here’s an explanation of the parameters:

   -d	This optional parameter launches the Docker container in daemon mode. This means that it runs in the background and doesn’t need its own Terminal window open. You can omit this parameter to have the container run in its own Terminal window.
   --name sql_server_demo	Another optional parameter. This parameter allows you to name the container. This can be handy when stopping and starting your container from the Terminal.
   -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y'	The Y shows that you agree with the EULA (End User Licence Agreement). This is required in order to have SQL Server for Linux run on your Mac.
   -e 'SA_PASSWORD=reallyStrongPwd123'	Required parameter that sets the sa database password.
   -p 1433:1433	This maps the local port 1433 to port 1433 on the container. This is the default TCP port that SQL Server uses to listen for connections.
   mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest	This tells Docker which image to use. If you downloaded a different one, use it instead.

   Password Strength

   If you get the following error at this step, try again, but with a stronger password.

   I received this error when using reallyStrongPwd as the password (but of course, it’s not a really strong password!). I was able to overcome this by adding some numbers to the end. However, if it wasn’t just a demo I’d definitely make it stronger than a few dictionary words and numbers.

6. Check the Docker container (optional)

   You can type the following command to check that the Docker container is running.

   If it’s up and running, it should return something like this:

7. Install sql-cli (unless already installed)

   Run the following command to install the sql-cli command line tool. This tool allows you to run queries and other commands against your SQL Server instance.

   This assumes you have NodeJs installed. If you don’t, download it from Nodejs.org first. Installing NodeJs will automatically install npm which is what we use in this command to install sql-cli.

   Permissions Error?

   If you get an error, and part of it reads something like Please try running this command again as root/Administrator, try again, but this time prepend sudo to your command:

8. Connect to SQL Server

   Now that sql-cli is installed, we can start working with SQL Server via the Terminal window on our Mac.

   Connect to SQL Server using the mssql command, followed by the username and password parameters.

   You should see something like this:

   This means you’ve successfully connected to your instance of SQL Server.

9. Run a Quick Test

   Run a quick test to check that SQL Server is up and running and you can query it.

   For example, you can run the following command to see which version of SQL Server your running:

   If it’s running, you should see something like this (but of course, this will depend on which version you’re running):

   If you see a message like this, congratulations — SQL Server is now up and running on your Mac!

   You can now go ahead and run SQL queries against SQL Server.

   See my free SQL Tutorial for Beginners to get started with writing simple queries against SQL Server.

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A SQL Server GUI for your Mac – Azure Data Studio

Azure Data Studio (formerly SQL Operations Studio) is a free GUI management tool that you can use to manage SQL Server on your Mac. You can use it to create and manage databases, write queries, backup and restore databases, and more.

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Azure Data Studio is available on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Here are some articles/tutorials I’ve written for Azure Data Studio:

Another Free SQL Server GUI – DBeaver

Another SQL Server GUI tool that you can use on your Mac (and Windows/Linux/Solaris) is DBeaver.

DBeaver is a free, open source database management tool that can be used on most database management systems (such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, Microsoft Access, Teradata, Firebird, Derby, and more).

I wrote a little introduction to DBeaver, or you can go straight to the DBeaver download page and try it out with your new SQL Server installation.

Limitations of SQL Server for Linux/Mac

SQL Server for Linux does have some limitations when compared to the Windows editions (although this could change over time). The Linux release doesn’t include many of the extra services that are available in the Windows release, such as Analysis Services, Reporting Services, etc. Here’s a list of what’s available and what’s not on SQL Server 2017 for Linux and here’s Microsoft’s list of Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2019 on Linux.

Another limitation is that SQL Server Management Studio is not available on Mac or Linux. SSMS a full-blown GUI management for SQL Server, and it provides many more features than Azure Data Studio and DBeaver (at least at the time of writing). You can still use SSMS on a Windows machine to connect to SQL Server on a Linux or Mac machine, but you just can’t install it locally on the Linux or Mac machine.

If you need any of the features not supported in SQL Server for Linux, you’ll need SQL Server for Windows. However, you can still run SQL Server for Windows on your Mac by using virtualization software. Here’s how to install SQL Server for Windows on a Mac using VirtualBox.

Install SQL Server directly to your Mac — no virtual machine required!

Microsoft has made SQL Server available for macOS and Linux systems. This is made possible by running SQL Server from a Docker container. Therefore, there's no need to install a virtual machine with Windows (which was the only way to run SQL Server on a Mac prior to SQL Server 2017).

Install and Configure Docker

This is a prerequisite for installing SQL Server on your Mac. Because the Mac runs SQL Server inside a Docker container, the first thing we need to do is download and install Docker (unless it's already installed). Once installed, we'll increase its memory allocation to a more suitable level for running SQL Server.

1. Download Docker from the download page, extract it, and drag it into your Application folder.
2. Launch Docker, and go to Preferences > Advanced and increase its memory allocation to 4GB

If I've confused you, don't worry. I've written a tutorial with screenshots: Install Docker on a Mac and Configure for SQL Server.

OK, we're now ready to install SQL Server on your Mac.

Now the Actual SQL Server Installation

Now that we've installed Docker and increased its memory allocation, we can go ahead and install SQL Server. The Mac uses the Linux image (the SQL Server for Linux Docker image).

1. Pull the SQL Server Image

   Open a Terminal window and run the following command:*

   This pulls the latest SQL Server for Linux Docker image to your computer.

   * The exact command will depend on which release you download. Also, since I wrote this article, Docker has moved the repository for SQL Server. You might need to use docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2017-latest-ubuntu to download SQL Server 2017.

   Also, SQL Server 2019 Preview has been available since late 2018. As of late 2019 you can download it at docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-CTP3.2-ubuntu.

   For the latest image, see the official Microsoft repository on the Docker website.

2. Launch the SQL Server Image

   Run the following command to launch an instance of the Docker image you just downloaded:

   docker run -d --name Homer -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y' -e 'SA_PASSWORD=myPassw0rd' -p 1433:1433 microsoft/mssql-server-linux

   Replace the container name and password with your own. Also be sure to make a strong password, or you may get an error (see below).

   Also, if you downloaded a different container image, replace microsoft/mssql-server-linux with your container image.

   Here's an explanation of the above parameters:

   -d

   This is an optional parameter that launches the Docker container in daemon mode. This means that it runs in the background and doesn't need its own Terminal window open. You can omit this parameter to have the container run in its own Terminal window.

   --name Homer

   This optional parameter provides a name for the container. This can be handy when stopping and starting the container from the Terminal.

   -e 'ACCEPT_EULA=Y'

   The Y shows that you agree with the EULA (End User Licence Agreement). This is required in order to install SQL Server.

   -e 'SA_PASSWORD=myPassw0rd'

   Required parameter that sets the sa database password.

   -p 1433:1433

   This maps the local port 1433 to port 1433 on the container. This is the default TCP port that SQL Server uses to listen for connections.

   microsoft/mssql-server-linux

   This tells Docker which image to use. If you downloaded a different one, use that instead.

   Password Strength

   If you get the following error at this step, try again, but with a stronger password.

   Microsoft(R) SQL Server(R) setup failed with error code 1. Please check the setup log in /var/opt/mssql/log for more information.

3. Check the Docker container (optional)

   Type the following command to check that the Docker container is running.

   If it's up and running, it should return something like this:

   Show All Containers

   The above command only shows those containers that are currently running. To show all containers (whether they're running or not), append the -a flag to the command (you can also use -all):

   docker ps -a OR docker ps -all

Check your Installation & Manage SQL Server

Now that you've installed SQL Server on your Mac, you'll probably want to check that you can access it and query it, etc. Then you'll probably want to start creating databases and doing other DB-related tasks. You'll need some sort of management tool for this.

Here are three options:

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• sql-cli

  sql-cli is a cross platform command line tool for SQL Server. This means you can create databases and query them right from your Mac's Terminal window.

  Installation is as easy as running a single command (assuming you already have NodeJs installed).

• Azure Data Studio

  Azure Data Studio (formerly called SQL Operations Studio) is a free GUI tool from Microsoft. It's a bit more user friendly for those who aren't comfortable with the command line interface.

  Installation is as easy as downloading it and dragging it to your Applications folder.

• DBeaver

  Another GUI option is DBeaver. DBeaver is a free open source database tool that works with many different database management systems (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MariaDB, SQLite, Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Sybase, MS Access, Teradata, Firebird, Derby, etc).

  You have a few options for installing DBeaver. The easiest way is to download the 'installer option', and then run the installation wizard.