Wslmanager

Welcome to WSL Manager 👋

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Shown on <b>Windows</b> &middot; the same app runs native VMs on <b>macOS</b> &mdash; expand <b>See it on macOS</b> below

Preview with light theme (Windows)

🍎 See it on macOS — native Linux and macOS virtual machines through Apple's Virtualization framework (beta)

WSL Distro Manager is a free, open source GUI for the Windows Subsystem for Linux — and, on macOS, for native Linux VMs. Install, copy, rename, move, back up and delete WSL distros without memorising a single wsl.exe flag — plus templates, saved command snippets, disk mounting, .wslconfig editing, remote WSL over SSH, and an MCP server that lets AI agents drive your WSL environment. On a Mac the very same app manages virtual machines through Apple's Virtualization framework instead.

🚀 Features

Manage distros

• Install from a built-in catalogue, or bring your own rootfs
• Copy, rename, move to another drive, back up and delete instances
• Back every instance up to one folder — with a list of what is in it — and restore them all on another PC
• Compact virtual disks to reclaim space WSL never gives back
• Watch what an instance is using right now — processor time, memory and swap, with a live graph
• Supports Ubuntu, Debian, Alpine, Kali Linux, openSUSE, SLES and anything else WSL accepts

Get instances running faster

• Use any Docker image as a distro — Docker itself is not required
• Package a configured distro as a portable .wsl file that installs on any machine (templates are deprecated in favour of these)
• Turnkey Linux and other LXC containers (experimental)
• Snippets: keep your setup commands in the app and run them on any instance
• Point the app at your own repository of rootfs images
• Browse a distro's files and copy the ones you pick into another instance — no share, no mount, no Explorer needed

Configure without editing files by hand

• systemd, automount, default user, start command and start path per distro
• Memory, processors, swap, networking mode, DNS and the rest of .wslconfig
• Mount a physical disk or a VHD into WSL, with partition and filesystem control
• Share host folders into a distro or VM at a mount point you pick, read-only if you like — the AI Workspace included

Work the way you already do

• Open Windows Terminal, VS Code or Explorer straight inside a distro
• Every instance in the Windows Terminal dropdown, kept current while the app runs — contributed as a fragment of its own, so your Terminal settings are never edited
• Manage WSL on a different Windows machine over SSH
• Sync a distro between two machines on your network
• Reach an instance by name: its hostname is kept in your hosts file, so ssh ubuntu.wsl keeps working after a reboot
• Keeps itself up to date: the website and GitHub builds download and install new releases themselves (Store installs are updated by the Store)
• Dark and light themes, available in nine languages