This tutorial is going to cover how to remove unused Docker images, containers, volumes, and networks.
1. Remove Docker Images
1.1. List All Docker Images
Before removing a Docker image, we have to know its name or id first. And we can use the docker images command to list all Docker images in our environment. Let’s refer to another tutorial for more basic Docker commands.
To list all Docker images:
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docker images |
For example,
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docker images REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE alpine latest 4a415e366388 5 days ago 3.98 MB hello-world latest 48b5124b2768 7 weeks ago 1.84 kB busybox latest 7968321274dc 7 weeks ago 1.11 MB iron/node latest 9ca501065d18 10 months ago 18.6 MB |
To list all Docker images including intermediate images:
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docker images -a |
1.2. Remove One or More Docker Images
1.2.1. Using the docker image rm command
To remove one ore more Docker images, we can use the docker image rm command which has the syntax as the following:
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docker image rm [OPTIONS] IMAGE [IMAGE...] |
Some options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –force, -f | false | Force removal of the image |
| –no-prune | false | Do not delete untagged parents |
Let’s see an example which we will remove two Docker images hello-world and alpine:
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docker image rm hello-world alpine |
1.2.2. Using the docker rmi command
We can use the docker rmi, another Docker command to remove one or more Docker images. And the command has syntax as the following:
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docker rmi [OPTIONS] IMAGE [IMAGE...] |
Some options of the command:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –force, -f | false | Force removal of the image |
| –no-prune | false | Do not delete untagged parents |
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docker rmi busybox iron/node |
1.3. Remove Unused Docker Images
To remove unused Docker images, we can use the docker image prune command which has the syntax as the following:
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docker image prune [OPTIONS] |
Some options of the command:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –all, -a | false | Remove all unused Docker images, not just dangling ones |
| –filter | Provide filter values (e.g. ‘until= ‘) | |
| –force, -f | false | Do not prompt for confirmation |
By default, the command just removes all dangling Docker images which are layers that have no relationship to any tagged images. By adding the -a option to the command, we can delete all used Docker images.
Let’s see the following example which we are going to delete all unused Docker images, not just dangling ones:
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$ docker image prune -a WARNING! This will remove all images without at least one container associated to them. Are you sure you want to continue? [y/N] y Deleted Images: untagged: alpine:latest untagged: alpine@sha256:58e1a1bb75db1b5a24a462dd5e2915277ea06438c3f105138f97eb53149673c4 deleted: sha256:4a415e3663882fbc554ee830889c68a33b3585503892cc718a4698e91ef2a526 deleted: sha256:23b9c7b43573dd164619ad59e9d51eda4095926729f59d5f22803bcbe9ab24c2 Total reclaimed space: 3.984 MB |
2. Remove Docker Containers
2.1. List All Docker Containers
In similar to removing Docker images, before we remove Docker containers, we have to know its name or id first. And we can use the docker ps command to list all Docker containers in our environment. Let’s refer to another tutorial for more basic Docker commands.
To list all Docker containers (default shows just running):
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docker ps -a |
Or we can use the new Docker syntax:
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docker container ls -a |
The sample output:
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[vagrant@localhost ~]$ docker ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 545ca8616836 busybox "sh" 5 seconds ago Exited (0) 4 seconds ago wonderf 365c4ef9668a alpine "/bin/echo hello" 9 seconds ago Exited (0) 8 seconds ago youthfu bdfc72b71d26 opensuse "/bin/echo hello" 36 seconds ago Exited (0) 34 seconds ago elated |
2.2. Remove One or More Docker Containers
2.2.1. Using the docker container rm command
We can use the docker container rm command which has the syntax as following, to remove one or more Docker containers:
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docker container rm [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...] |
Some options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –force, -f | false | Force removal of the running containers (use SIGKILL) |
| –link, -l | false | Remove the specified link |
| –volumes, -v | false | Remove the volumes associated with the container |
Example:
To remove the containers which have IDs: 545ca8616836, 365c4ef9668a
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docker container rm 545ca8616836 365c4ef9668a |
2.2.2. Using the docker rm command
Another Docker command that can be used to remove one or more Docker containers is docker rm. Let’s see its syntax:
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docker rm [OPTIONS] CONTAINER [CONTAINER...] |
The command options are similar to the docker container rm command options.
Example:
To remove container has id: bdfc72b71d26
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docker rm bdfc72b71d26 |
2.3. Remove Stopped Docker Containers
To remove stopped Docker containers, we can use the docker container prune command which has the syntax as the following:
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docker container prune [OPTIONS] |
Some command options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –filter | Provide filter values (e.g. ‘until= ‘) | |
| –force, -f | false | Do not prompt for confirmation |
Example:
Let’s list all containers:
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[vagrant@localhost ~]$ docker ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 08539dbb5aaf busybox "sh" 8 seconds ago Exited (0) 7 seconds ago musing_be 5c5dae751476 opensuse "tail -f /dev/null" 19 seconds ago Up 18 seconds thirsty_y |
Then remove all stopped containers:
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[vagrant@localhost ~]$ docker container prune -f Deleted Containers: 08539dbb5aaf440dc2a582d75783087e7304bd537881c34d59886cb8c91df52a |
Let’s see the list of containers again:
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[vagrant@localhost ~]$ docker ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 5c5dae751476 opensuse "tail -f /dev/null" 4 minutes ago Up 4 minutes thirsty_yalow |
We can see that only the stopped busybox container was removed while the opensue container is still running.
3. Remove Docker Networks
3.1. List All Docker Networks
To list all Docker networks, we can use the docker network ls command which has syntax as below:
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docker network ls [OPTIONS] |
3.2. Remove One or More Docker Networks
3.2.1. Using the docker network rm command
We can use the docker network rm command which syntax is described as below, to remove one ore more Docker networks.
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docker network rm NETWORK [NETWORK...] |
3.3. Remove All Unused Docker Networks
To remove all unused Docker networks, we can use the docker network prune command which syntax is described as below:
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docker network prune [OPTIONS] |
Here are some command options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –filter | Provide filter values (e.g. ‘until= ‘) | |
| –force, -f | false | Do not prompt for confirmation |
4. Remove Docker Volumes
4.1. List All Docker Volumes
Before removing any Docker volume, we should know about it first. And to do that we can use the docker volume ls to list all Docker volumes. Let’s see the command syntax:
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docker volume ls [OPTIONS] |
Some options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –filter, -f | Provide filter values (e.g. ‘dangling=true’) | |
| –format | Pretty-print volumes using a Go template | |
| –quiet, -q | false | Only display volume names |
4.2. Remove One or More Docker Volumes
To remove one or more Docker volume, we can use the docker volume rm command which syntax is as below:
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docker volume rm [OPTIONS] VOLUME [VOLUME...] |
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –force, -f | false | Force the removal of one or more volumes |
To remove Docker volumes: data01, data02
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docker volume rm data01 data02 |
4.3. Remove All Unused Docker Volumes
To remove all unused Docker volumes, we can use the docker volume prune command which has syntax as the following:
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docker volume prune [OPTIONS] |
Options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –force, -f | false | Do not prompt for confirmation |
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docker volume prune -f |
5. Remove All Docker Unused Data
To remove all Docker unused data which includes used images, stopped containers, unused networks and unused volumes, we can use the docker system prune command which has the following syntax:
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docker system prune [OPTIONS] |
Options:
| Name, shorthand | Default | Description |
| –all, -a | false | Remove all unused images not just dangling ones |
| –filter | Provide filter values (e.g. ‘until= ‘) | |
| –force, -f | false | Do not prompt for confirmation |
Example:
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[vagrant@localhost ~]$ docker system prune |
6. Conclusion
The article has just illustrated how to remove unused Docker images, containers, volumes, and networks especially unused Docker data. In addition, we can see that Docker CLI now provides us more new commands which can be used to manage images, containers, volumes and networks separately.
Here are other related articles for your references:
Attach and Detach from Docker Container
Copy Files, Folders from Host to Docker Container and Vice Versa
Install Docker on Ubuntu 16.04, 15.10, 14.04 Step By Step
Introduction to Docker Compose
Vagrant Docker Provider Tutorial
How to Get IP Address of a Docker Container