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I have docker desktop installed in mac. So in order to start docker, I open applications and find docker. Then I can see a docker icon at the topbar. later I can run docker commands from the command line.

My question is how do I start the docker itself from command line?

Googling fetches me results on how to start a container from command line :|

Answers

On macOS you'd use launchctl:

It's unclear which service you are actually intending to run, although the equivalent to service or systemctl on Linux is launchctl on macOS (eg. running docker registry with launchd):

Copy the Docker registry plist into place:

plutil -lint registry/recipes/osx/com.docker.registry.plist
cp registry/recipes/osx/com.docker.registry.plist ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
chmod 644 ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.docker.registry.plist

Start the Docker registry:

launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.docker.registry.plist

Restart the docker registry service

launchctl stop com.docker.registry
launchctl start com.docker.registry

Unload the docker registry service

launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/com.docker.registry.plist

↳ Run the Docker Registry under launchd