Docker how to delete container

How To Remove Docker Containers, Images and Volumes [Cheat Sheet]

Introduction

This article describes how to delete objects, Images, Containers, Volumes, and Networks in Docker. We will explain in detail how to use the options of the Docker rm command and other useful commands that are difficult to understand from the official documentation alone. If you are new to Docker, please refer to this article as a cheat sheet.

Purging All Unused or Dangling Images, Containers, Volumes, and Networks

Ever wanted to get rid of unnecessary things with Docker? If you want to delete a Docker object, that’s often the case. In that case, the command Docker prune is effective. The prune command allows you to delete unused Docker objects (containers, images, networks, volumes) all at once. The following is an example.

At this time, by using the —filter option, it is possible to narrow down and delete the containers that have been stopped for a long time. The following is an example of deleting a container that has been stopped for more than 24 hours.

More information on filtering can be found in the following official documentation: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/system_prune/

Removing Docker Containers

This section describes the command to delete a Docker container.

Removing one or more containers by id or name

When deleting one Docker container, you can delete it by specifying the container ID or name. The following is an example.

You can also delete multiple containers together by specifying the IDs or names of multiple containers, as shown below.

Removing all stopped containers

If your Docker version is 1.13 or higher, you can easily remove all stopped containers using the docker container prune command. The following is an example.

Remove a container upon exit

Stop and remove all containers

The following command is convenient if you want to stop/remove all the containers, including the running container.

Removing Docker Images

Removing one or more images by id

Use the docker rmi command to delete a Docker image. As below:

Also, since this command can be specified multiple times like deleting a container, You can delete multiple images at the same time as shown below.

Removing images by tag

Removing dangling images

Like deleting a container, deleting an image can quickly delete all stopped containers by specifying prune in the command. The following is an example.

Removing all unused images

Removing all images

To remove all images, whether you are using them or not, enter the following command:

Removing Docker Volumes

Removing one or more volumes

To delete a Volume, use the docker volume rm command as shown below.

As with the deletion of other objects, multiple deletions are possible.

Removing all unused volumes

You can delete unused volumes with the docker volume prune command.

Removing Docker Networks

Removing one or more networks by id or name

To remove Docker’s Network, use the docker network rm command. In this case, specify either the name or id of the network.

This command can also be deleted multiple times and is specified as follows.

Also, if you specify multiple networks, this command attempts to delete each network in turn. If deleting one network fails, proceed to the next and try to delete that network. Success or failure is reported with each deletion.

Removing all unused network

If you want to remove an unused network, use the docker network prune command like any other object.

Removing docker-compose

Finally, I will show you how to delete the object created by docker-compose when you want to clean the development environment and recreate it from scratch.

Below is an example of a command to clean all containers, images, volumes, networks, and undefined containers created with docker-compose.

Therefore, this command example removes containers, images, volumes, networks, and undefined containers.

Conclusion

I’ve introduced you to various Docker removal commands. Recent Docker is very convenient because you can delete unnecessary objects by using the prune command. You can learn more about the commands introduced so far from the official documentation below.

Secure your IaC with just a few clicks!

You can keep your IaC security for free. No credit card required.

How To Remove Docker Images, Containers, and Volumes

Introduction

Docker makes it easy to wrap your applications and services in containers so you can run them anywhere. As you work with Docker, however, it’s also easy to accumulate an excessive number of unused images, containers, and data volumes that clutter the output and consume disk space.

Docker gives you all the tools you need to clean up your system from the command line. This cheat sheet-style guide provides a quick reference to commands that are useful for freeing disk space and keeping your system organized by removing unused Docker images, containers, and volumes.

How to Use This Guide:

Purging All Unused or Dangling Images, Containers, Volumes, and Networks

Docker provides a single command that will clean up any resources — images, containers, volumes, and networks — that are dangling (not tagged or associated with a container):

Removing Docker Images

Remove one or more specific images

List:

Remove:

Remove dangling images

Note: If you build an image without tagging it, the image will appear on the list of dangling images because it has no association with a tagged image. You can avoid this situation by providing a tag when you build, and you can retroactively tag an image with the docker tag command.

List:

Remove:

Removing images according to a pattern

List:

Remove:

Remove all images

List:

Remove:

Removing Containers

Remove one or more specific containers

List:

Remove:

Remove a container upon exiting

Run and Remove:

Remove all exited containers

List:

Remove:

Remove containers using more than one filter

List:

Remove:

Remove containers according to a pattern

List:

Remove:

Stop and remove all containers

List:

Remove:

Removing Volumes

Use the docker volume ls command to locate the volume name or names you wish to delete. Then you can remove one or more volumes with the docker volume rm command:

List:

Remove:

Since the point of volumes is to exist independent from containers, when a container is removed, a volume is not automatically removed at the same time. When a volume exists and is no longer connected to any containers, it’s called a dangling volume. To locate them to confirm you want to remove them, you can use the docker volume ls command with a filter to limit the results to dangling volumes. When you’re satisfied with the list, you can remove them all with docker volume prune :

List:

Remove:

Remove a container and its volume

Remove:

Conclusion

For a detailed look at the different components of a Docker container, check out The Docker Ecosystem: An Introduction to Common Components.

Want to learn more? Join the DigitalOcean Community!

Join our DigitalOcean community of over a million developers for free! Get help and share knowledge in our Questions & Answers section, find tutorials and tools that will help you grow as a developer and scale your project or business, and subscribe to topics of interest.

How To Remove Docker Images, Containers, Networks & Volumes

Home » DevOps and Development » How To Remove Docker Images, Containers, Networks & Volumes

Docker containers are designed to provide a self-sufficient environment, with all the libraries and configurations needed for the software to execute. During development, they can grow unorganized with old, outdated, and unused components.

In this guide, you will learn how to organize a Docker environment by removing Docker images, containers, volumes, and networks.

Using these commands makes Docker container management fast and straightforward.

Note: If your system responds with «access denied» after trying to remove, add the sudo prefix at the beginning of the command.

How to Remove Docker Containers

A container creates a specific environment in which a process can be executed. Many containers are created, tested, and abandoned during the development lifecycle.

Therefore, it’s important to know how to find unnecessary containers and remove them.

Stop Containers

1. First, list all Docker containers using the command:

The output displays a list of all running containers, their IDs, names, images, status and other parameters.

You can also generates a list of all the containers only by their numeric ID’s, run the command:

2. To stop a specific container, enter the following:

Replace [container_id] with the numeric ID of the container from your list.

You can enter multiple container IDs into the same command.

To stop all containers, enter:

This forces Docker to use the list of all container IDs as the target of the stop command.

Remove a Stopped Container

To remove a stopped container, use the command:

Like before, this removes a container with the ID you specify.

Remove All Stopped Containers

To remove all stopped containers:

Remove All Docker Containers

To wipe Docker clean and start from scratch, enter the command:

This instructs Docker to stop the containers listed in the parentheses.

Inside the parentheses, you instruct Docker to generate a list of all the containers with their numeric ID. Then, the information is passed back to the container stop command and stops all the containers.

The && attribute instructs Docker to remove all stopped containers and volumes.

-af indicates this should apply to all containers ( a ) without a required confirmation ( f ).

Removing Container With Filters

You can also specify to delete all objects that do not match a specified label.

To do so, use the command:

This command tells Docker to remove all containers that are not labeled with a maintainer of «jeremy.» The != command is a logical notation that means «not equal to.»

A breakdown of the label commands:

Using these terms in conjunction with labels gives you in-depth control over removing assets in Docker.

How to Remove Docker Images

Docker images are files, which include multiple layers used to run code within a container.

Images may go through many iterations during development. Old and outdated images can clutter your system, taking up storage space and making searches more cumbersome.

1. To remove a Docker image, start by listing all the images on your system:

The output displays the locally available Docker images, as seen below.

2. Make a note of the IMAGE ID – this is the identifier used to remove the image.

3. Then, remove the unwanted image(s):

Replace [image_id1] and [image_id2] with the image ID you pulled from the first command. You can enter a single Image ID, or multiple IDs for removal.

The system may respond to your request with an error message, that there is a conflict and it is unable to remove the repository reference. This indicates that a container is using the image. You need to remove the container first before you can remove the image.

Removing Docker Images With Filters

Use the until filter to remove all resources up to a given time.

Enter the following:

This removes all ( -a ) images created over the last 24 hours. The command can be used for containers, images, and filters. Make sure to specify the asset you want to remove.

The until command accepts Unix timestamps, date-formatted timestamps, or an amount of time (30m, 4h, 2h25m) calculated against the machine time.

Use the label command to remove assets defined by labels.

Enter the following:

This removes all docker images that have been labeled «old».

Filtering can also be used to define a specific value of a label.

For example, if a container is labeled with a «maintainer» key, and the value of «maintainer» is either «bill” or «jeremy,» you can type:

Docker then removes all containers with the label «maintainer» with a value of «bill.»

How to Remove Docker Volumes

It helps store and organize data outside containers in a way that it’s accessible to multiple containers.

1. Use the following command to generate a list of all the available Docker volumes:

Take note of the VOLUME NAME you want to remove.

Make sure to replace VolumeName with the actual name you generated with the previous command.

If the volume is in use by an existing container, the system responds with an error. This means need to remove the container first.

Note: For more Docker commands, see our Docker commands cheat sheet.

How to Remove Docker Networks

Docker networks allow different containers to communicate with each other freely while also preventing traffic from outside the network. This is typically done with a Docker bridge network.

The prune command removes all unused networks.

Removing a Single Network

1. Display a list of all existing Docker networks with the command:

2. Take note of the NETWORK ID – this is the identifier used to remove a specific network. Then, enter:

Replace [networkID] with the ID you captured from the first command.

You may receive an error message that says the network has active endpoints. That means that the network is currently in use by containers. You need to remove the containers that are using the network before you can remove the network.

Remove All Unused Docker Objects

The prune command automatically removes all resources that aren’t associated with a container. This is a streamlined way to clean up unused images, containers, volumes, and networks.

In a terminal window, enter the following:

Additional flags can be included:

Also, you can specify a single type of object to be removed, instead of the entire environment:

List all Docker Resources

Enter the following commands to display resources:

The above-mentioned lists number of containers, images, and information about the Docker installation. These commands can help you locate and identify resources that you want to keep, or that you want to delete.

The following flags can also be added:

During the development cycle of an application in Docker containers, it’s easy to use a lot of storage with old versions of images and containers.

In this guide, you learned the most common commands for removing Docker images, containers, volumes, and networks.

Docker Image Guide: How to Delete Docker Images, Stop Containers, and Remove all Volumes

Docker has been widely adopted and is a great vehicle to deploy an application to the cloud (or some other Docker-ready infrastructure). It is also useful for local development. You can start complex applications quickly, develop in isolation, and still have a very good performance.

Here are the most important commands to use Docker in your daily business efficiently.

List All Docker Images

In my case, I have 3 images installed:

To get more information about an image, you can inspect it:

This will return a list of information. Alternatively, you can also use the image ID to get the information:

The output can be overwhelming. Therefore, there is a handy option to filter certain information:

Remove Docker Images

A single image can be removed by:

In my case, the image is still tagged with mysql:8.0.19. Therefore, to remove it completely, I need to also remove another version tag:

To remove the image directly, it is easier to delete the image by image id:

The option -f forces the execution, because otherwise you would get an error if the image is referenced by more than 1 tag.

Start a Docker Image

An image can be started in the foreground by:

If the image does not exist, then it will be downloaded. You can stop the execution by pressing CTRL+C. You can also run it in the background by adding the -d option:

If the container is started in the background, then you receive the container ID.

By default, the container runs in isolation. Therefore, you won’t be able do any communication with it, and no files are stored in your current directory.

Forward ports of a container

You can forward ports by using the -p option to, for example, a page that is exposed from your container:

Log into a container

Sometimes it is helpful to log into a container. This is only possible if the container has a shell installed. You will get an error if this is not the case.

First, start the container detached and give it a name:

This will return a container ID. Now you can execute a shell in the container and attach your input and output to it by using the options -i and -t:

Instead of the container name, you can also use the returned container ID for all following operations. Sometimes, bash is not available. Therefore, you can also try to launch a basic shell:

List running containers

After you’ve started a container, you can see all running containers executing:

By appending -a, exited containers will also be listed:

Share a local folder with a container

Sometimes it is useful to sync files between the container and the local filesystem. You can do it by running a container and using the -v option. On Linux and macOS, you can share a local temporary folder with a container by:

On windows you can run:

Stop running containers

It is possible to stop a running container by:

Stopping a container stops all processes but keeps changes within the filesystem.

Start a stopped container

A stopped container can be started by:

Remove a container

To remove a stopped container, you can execute:

To stop and remove the container in one command, you can add the force option -f.

Create a volume and share it with multiple containers

An independent volume named SharedData can be created by:

Both containers will have a shared folder, and files will be synced between both containers.

Remove a volume

To remove a volume, all containers that use the volume need to be removed.

Remove stopped containers and unused images

A safe tidy-up command is:

Remove all unused volumes

All unmounted volumes can be removed by:

Conclusion

Creating containers, logging into containers, forwarding ports, and sharing volumes are the most important commands of your Docker command line interface. They build the foundation of systems like Kubernetes and enable us to create and run applications in isolation.

I hope you enjoyed the article. If you like it and feel the need for a round of applause, follow me on Twitter.

I am a co-founder of our revolutionary journey platform called Explore The World. We are a young startup located in Dresden, Germany and will target the German market first. Reach out to me if you have feedback and questions about any topic.

Stop and remove all docker containers

How can I stop and remove all docker containers to create a clean slate with my Docker containers? Lots of times I feel it is easier to start from scratch, but I have a bunch of containers that I am not sure what their states are, then when I run docker rm it won’t let me because the docker container could still be in use.

12 Answers 12

Trending sort

Trending sort is based off of the default sorting method — by highest score — but it boosts votes that have happened recently, helping to surface more up-to-date answers.

It falls back to sorting by highest score if no posts are trending.

Switch to Trending sort

Stop all the containers

Remove all the containers

Find more command here

Docker introduced new namespaces and commands which everyone should finally learn and not stick to the old habits. Here is the documentation, and here are some examples:

Deleting no longer needed containers (stopped)

Deleting no longer needed images

Delete all volumes, which are not used by any existing container

( even stopped containers do claim volumes ). This usually cleans up dangling anon-volumes of containers have been deleted long time ago. It should never delete named volumes since the containers of those should exists / be running. Be careful, ensure your stack at least is running before going with this one