Podman Permission Error on MacOS

I encountered this issue with a recent install of Podman on a Mac. It resulted in containers failing to run, in my case with the following error:

PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: ‘/path/to/log/files’

This was caused by the virtual machine provider in Podman being set to libkrun, which is the default for machines created via both the command line and Podman Desktop as of late 2025. The solution is to re-create the Podman machine with the provider set to Apple Hypervisor (applehv).

First, check the provider for the existing machine by running the following and checking the vmtype. If it is set to libkrun it may cause permission errors.

podman machine info

Alternatively you can check the provider in Podman Desktop by navigating to Settings > Resources.

To re-create the Podman machine with an alternative provider, firstly delete the existing machine. This can be done by running the following command or in the Resources section of Podman Desktop.

podman machine rm

Then create a new machine by running the following command.

podman machine init --provider applehv

If you chose to create the machine in Podman Desktop, ensure that the Provider Type is set to Apple Hypervisor, rather than the default LibKrun.

There is an ongoing discussion about this issue on GitHub, which was extremely helpful in diagnosing the cause of my error.