Docker is the easiest way to run Odoo on your Mac. No dependency headaches, no version conflicts. This guide gets you from zero to a running Odoo instance in under 10 minutes.

Pre-requisites

macOS 12+
Docker Desktop for Mac
Terminal access

STEP 1 Install Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop is the easiest way to run containers on Mac. Download it from the official site or install via Homebrew.

brew install --cask docker

Open Docker Desktop from your Applications folder and wait for it to start. You’ll see the Docker icon in your menu bar when it’s ready.

STEP 2 Create a Project Directory

mkdir ~/odoo-docker
cd ~/odoo-docker

STEP 3 Create docker-compose.yml

Docker Compose lets you define and run multi-container applications. We need two containers — one for Odoo and one for PostgreSQL.

nano docker-compose.yml

Paste this configuration:

version: '3.1'
services:
  db:
    image: postgres:15
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_DB=postgres
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=odoo
      - POSTGRES_USER=odoo
    volumes:
      - odoo-db-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    restart: always

  odoo:
    image: odoo:17.0
    depends_on:
      - db
    ports:
      - "8069:8069"
    volumes:
      - odoo-web-data:/var/lib/odoo
      - ./config:/etc/odoo
      - ./addons:/mnt/extra-addons
    restart: always

volumes:
  odoo-db-data:
  odoo-web-data:

STEP 4 Create Config Directory

mkdir config addons

STEP 5 Create Odoo Config File

nano config/odoo.conf

[options]
addons_path = /mnt/extra-addons
data_dir = /var/lib/odoo

STEP 6 Start Odoo

docker-compose up -d

Docker will pull the images and start both containers. Wait about 30 seconds and then open your browser.

http://localhost:8069

Useful Docker Commands

# Check running containers
docker-compose ps

# View Odoo logs
docker-compose logs -f odoo

# Stop Odoo
docker-compose down

# Stop and remove all data (fresh start)
docker-compose down -v

# Restart Odoo
docker-compose restart odoo

That’s it. You now have Odoo 17 running on your Mac with Docker. Any custom modules you build go in the addons folder and they’ll be available in Odoo automatically.