Azure Data Studio (previously known as SQL Operations Studio) is a free tool that you can use to manage SQL Server. It uses a graphical user interface (GUI) that helps you view the various databases and objects within a SQL Server instance. It can run on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and it’s also designed to be used with Azure SQL Database, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse.

Here I explain how to install Azure Data Studio onto a Mac, then how to use it to connect to SQL Server.

Install Azure Data Studio

To install Azure Data Studio onto your Mac:

1. Visit the Azure Data Studio download page, and click the .zip file for macOS
2. Once the .zip file has finished downloading, double click it to expand its contents
3. Drag the .app file to the Applications folder (the file will probably be called Azure Data Studio.app)

If you use Windows or Linux, the above linked page also includes download files for those platforms, as well as instructions for installing.

Note that, although Microsoft states that Azure Data Studio “currently does not support the ARM architecture”, I have had no problems with installing it on my M1 Mac (i.e. with ARM architecture).

Connect to SQL Server

Now that Azure Data Studio is installed, you can use it to connect to SQL Server.

1. Launch Azure Data Studio just as you would launch any other application (e.g. from the Launchpad or Applications folder)
2. Enter the login credentials and other information for the SQL Server instance that you’d like to connect to: Mine looked like this (based on my SQL Server on a Mac tutorial):
   • Server Name: localhost
   • Authentication Type: SQL Login
   • User name: sa
   • Password: reallyStrongPwd123
   • Database Name: <default>
   • Server Group: <default>

If you use a port other than the default 1433, click Advanced and enter it in the Port field.

Alternatively, you can append it to your server name, with a comma between. For example, if you use port 1400, use localhost,1400.

Once Azure Data Studio has connected to the SQL Server instance, you’ll be presented with the server dashboard, which looks something like this:

You can now go ahead and create databases, run scripts, and perform other SQL Server management tasks.

Error when Connecting?

If you receive an error when trying to connect, check that SQL Server is in fact running.

The above example connects to SQL Server running on the local machine (localhost refers to the local machine). In our case, the local machine is a Mac.

Therefore, the above steps assume that you’ve already installed SQL Server on your Mac.

If you’ve previously installed SQL Server on your Mac, but you still get a connection error, make sure your Mac has Docker running and you’ve started the SQL Server Docker container.

Below are instructions for launching Docker and starting the Docker container.

Open Docker and Start the Docker Container

1. Open Docker just as you would open any other application (e.g. via the Launchpad, Applications folder, etc).
2. Once Docker is running, open your Terminal and start the Docker container. It should look something like this:

   docker start sql_server_demo

This starts a previously stopped container called sql_server_demo. This is the name that I gave the container in my SQL Server on a Mac tutorial. You’ll need to modify this command to suit your own container’s name.

What Next?

Now that you’ve installed Azure Data Studio on your Mac, you might be wondering where to start?

Here’s how to create a database in Azure Data Studio to get you started.

And here’s how to restore a database using Azure Data Studio, written specifically for the Mac.