How to remove unused Docker containers and images

remove-docker-containers.md

May 8, 2018

I wrote this four years ago, so instead use this command:

$ docker rmi $(docker images -q -f dangling=true)

As of 1.13.0, see the new prune commands:

docker container prune   # Remove all stopped containers
docker volume prune      # Remove all unused volumes
docker image prune       # Remove unused images
docker system prune      # All of the above, in this order: containers, volumes, images

Bonus:

docker system df         # Show docker disk usage, including space reclaimable by pruning

New Data Management commands PR: moby/moby#26108

In Windows using PowerShell, this might work:
&'C:\Program Files\Docker\docker' ps -a | foreach-object { $l = $PSItem.ToString(); $c = $l.Substring(0, $l.IndexOf(" ")); if ($c.ToLower() -ne "container") { $cmd = "c:\Program Files\Docker\docker.exe"; & $cmd "rm" $c } }

Worked great on the Windows container! Thanks!

PowerShell

docker ps -a -q | % { docker rm $_ }
docker images -q | % { docker rmi $_ }

Great gist! Exactly what I was looking for

If you dislike shell commands try installing docker for python with for instance pip install docker and use the following script to remove junk images

#!/usr/bin/python

import docker
dockDaemon = docker.from_env()

imgid = [I.id for I in dockDaemon.images.list() if I.attrs["RepoTags"]==[u'<none>:<none>']]

for id in imgid:
   try:
        print "Trying to remove image",id
        dockDaemon.images.remove(id)
        print "Removed image",id
    except docker.errors.APIError,e:
        print "skipping image ",id,"as this is still in use"

@ianmalott list plus:

docker network prune

mark

I am using all those commands. I am getting an error while deleting an image which has dependent containers. I would like to know is there any way of deleting images which does not have any containers associated with it. Because I am running docker rmi command from jenkins job as docker rmi $(docker images -q). This command fails when removing an image which has dependent containers and due to that jenkins job is failing. Any suggestions on this.

I have 3 ghost containers that I can't get rid of as they keep reappearing with another ID. I have tried all of the above examples even including one I found in a book which is: "docker update --restart=no <container_id or name>.
Any ideas on how I can make these go away???
Like a T-Shirt I saw "How can I miss you if you won't go away"
Thanks.

Finally got rid of those ghosts. Did "docker update --restart=no <container_id or name> or list of containers" and then did a "systemctl restart docker" and then they were gone!!!

I lied. 3 minutes after Docker restarted the 3 containers plus 2 more were back.

Does anyone know how I can completely get rid of those unwanted containers???

Thanks.

@GerBreOwn

docker stop $(docker ps -a -q) &
docker update --restart=no $(docker ps -a -q) &
systemctl restart docker

docker image prune

Does anyone know if there is a Windows cheat sheet for all of those commands ?

For Mac OSX I used:

docker rmi `docker images`
docker rm -f `docker ps -a`

Can anybody confirm / improve this command. It seems a bit tricky to me.

On ubuntu 16, I run docker images -q -f dangling=true | xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rmi but I'm getting few error I don't like:

Deleted: sha256:dcb6f5d567c4132f4921475010ac24b363aa69cb553de2a607a3000a5790eb73
Deleted: sha256:55050923de04598352fd3afcd08fb40a363d34528bd88a0b50403ad47eff1818
Untagged: abiosoft/caddy@sha256:9ddf5098c411437eb618f33046b13f2eb2a83e533e582053f0c2d90351b5e29d
Deleted: sha256:81d184abca3c6b789051b123ff5387ce1791b5a3ff363a1190f8bc65cd8ac4d0
Deleted: sha256:7dbeb84197d3d35e83e9d4bbb68e89816a5ed8f62072dc811432da332f4f6373
Deleted: sha256:6fa265aed859e111ca4e83441dce77b14a0692e3c295b72fb84ce696d3f81c4f
Deleted: sha256:ca8067d933cfd402d4f676775f4e623903ba42874fe47cce9694579c08644281
Deleted: sha256:a11b91f29e8caf4313f6f152a31bb63fc3f9ef25184837c4c163f783b4888663
Untagged: gliderlabs/logspout@sha256:9a807db8e9e484920c3228770da76b8af68e8704d8ca0965e68bf8cefc93cee1
Deleted: sha256:87895b8ba6144d395bc439523759a9b5637bf52a1007374fc2c24e1e0eba9067
Deleted: sha256:48f64bfe03edce8015597db7dc32f533538e3b45738af2f086f91ed8510a6299
Deleted: sha256:1e7daedfbf19ac38f824ab39a22c22502a9a6f80fec095b1cd12f37f1ca6b513
Deleted: sha256:e154057080f406372ebecadc0bfb5ff8a7982a0d13823bab1be5b86926c6f860
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete edbfcbd9b2a3 (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container c505416ead45
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete 9b0dc474ee71 (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container a0a5bd08a4ba
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete c0daf5d22637 (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container 6efb59171b5e
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete a7a205723d12 (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container 82bf86cc7464
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete 47dbf4321bb4 (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container f1d2bc973e98
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete c68795cb48b2 (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container 0293120cc87a
Error response from daemon: conflict: unable to delete 08e03914fceb (cannot be forced) - image is being used by running container 74c1e296ff6f

I had to remove a group of containers with a particular label and the associated images.

This worked for me on windows powershell

docker ps -a -q -f "label=DEV" | foreach-object {docker stop $PSItem.toString()}
docker ps -a -q -f "label=DEV" | foreach-object {$i = docker inspect $PSItem.toString() --format='{{.Config.Image}}'; docker rmi -f $i}
docker ps -a -q -f "label=DEV" | foreach-object {docker rm -f $PSItem.toString()}

For linux:

docker stop $(docker ps -a -q -f "label=DEV")
docker rmi -f $(docker ps -a -q -f "label=DEV" | xargs docker inspect --format='{{.Config.Image}}')
docker rm -f $(docker ps -a -q -f "label=DEV")

I put this alias in my .profile

alias docker-prune='docker system df && docker container prune && docker volume prune && docker system prune && docker system df'

Now, I can run docker-prune to clean-up all my Docker unused resources and reclaim disk space.

Stop all containers:
for i in $(docker ps | awk '{print $1}' | awk '{if(NR>1)print}'); do docker stop $i; done

Delete all images:
for i in $(docker images | awk '{print $3}' | awk '{if(NR>1)print}'); do docker rmi $i; done

Remove all docker images marked as "none" in Powershell

docker rmi ((docker images | select-string "<none>" | ConvertFrom-String) | Select -ExpandProperty "P3")

This worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04
Before deleting all the containers, force stop them:
docker ps -q -a | xargs docker stop

Then delete the containers using:
docker ps -q -a | xargs docker rm

Now delete all the dangling images using:
docker rmi $(docker images | grep “^<none>” | awk ‘{print $3}’)

'docker system prune' doesn't remove images on windows

You can try out below script, i am using that below

#!/bin/bash

timestamp=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
log_path="`pwd`"
filename=docker_cleanup_$timestamp.log
log=$log_path/$filename


docker_space_before(){
CURRENTSPACE=`docker system df`
echo "Current Docker Space:" >> $log
echo $CURRENTSPACE >>$log
}
docker_find (){
echo "#####################################################################" >> $log
echo "Finding images" >> $log
echo "#####################################################################" >> $log
REMOVEIMAGES=`docker images | grep " [days|months|weeks]* ago" | awk '{print $3}'`

echo "Listing images that needs to be cleaned up" >> $log
echo $REMOVEIMAGES >>$log

}

docker_cleanup(){
echo "#####################################################################" >> $log
echo "Cleaning images" >> $log
echo "#####################################################################" >> $log
docker rmi ${REMOVEIMAGES}
}

docker_space_after(){
CURRENTSPACE=`docker system df`
echo "Current Docker Space, after clean up:" >> $log
echo $CURRENTSPACE >>$log
}
docker_space_before
docker_find
docker_cleanup
docker_space_after

'docker system prune' doesn't remove images on windows

same here, have you found any solution?

For Windows, what's more:

Stop and remove by image name =>

FOR /f "tokens=*" %i IN ('docker ps -a --filter "ancestor=ImageNameHere" -q') DO docker stop %i && docker rm %i

...

(don't forget to change %i to %%i in batch file)

the best thing to control and clean up unused containers which still running are to label them on docker run and use few command lines through crontab:
1'st one to kill docker containers creates x time ago and with labe x:
docker ps -a --filter "label=<label_name>" | grep 'x period crated ago' | awk '{ print $1 }' | xargs -I {} docker rm {} -f
2'nd one clean up all unused images which also have tag "none":
docker rmi $(docker images --filter "dangling=true" -q --no-trunc) 2>/dev/null

Then your environment should be always clean :) Cheers....

docker ps -a -q | % { docker rm $_ }
docker images -q | % { docker rmi $_ }

thank you so much