Accessing Apps

Opening an App

For a running app with a web interface, click the WEB UI tile in its detail view to open it in your default browser. You can also choose Open in Browser from the app's menu in Lawn's menu bar dropdown.

Local Domain Names

Every running app gets a .local domain name automatically. A running Paperless instance becomes reachable at:

http://paperless.local

The hostname is derived from the instance name:

• Spaces and special characters become hyphens
• The name is lowercased
• Unicode characters are replaced with hyphens

For example, "My Paperless" becomes http://my-paperless.local.

To open the app from a phone or another computer, connect that device to the same local network as the Mac hosting Lawn and open the same .local address. These addresses cannot be used to reach your apps over the Internet.

Device support: Local domain names work on macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Android 12 and later, and Windows 10 (build 1903) and later.

Accessing via localhost

On the Mac hosting Lawn, available ports are accessible at localhost:<port>. For a web interface, use http://localhost:<port>. Find the available addresses in the app's detail view under Ports. On a phone or another computer, localhost refers to that device, so it cannot reach the app hosted on your Mac.

This is useful when:

• You're working directly on your Mac and prefer explicit ports
• A .local domain doesn't resolve on the Mac hosting Lawn
• You need to configure a third-party tool that requires localhost

Port Assignments

Some apps need a specific port, such as port 53 for DNS. If another app or process is using a required port, Lawn marks it Unavailable and shows the owner when it can identify one. Other available ports can still work, so an app's web interface may open while its DNS service is unavailable.

If you need a specific port (for example, to match a bookmark or mobile app configuration), you can change it in the port configuration.

Multiple Containers

Some apps run multiple containers internally (for example, a web app with a database). Lawn handles the networking between containers automatically. You only interact with the main web UI — the supporting services work seamlessly in the background.