Remove Docker Containers, Images, and Volumes

Docker provides a comprehensive set of command-line tools that enable you to clean up your system effectively. If you are a beginner with Docker, this article can serve as a useful cheat sheet for reference. It provides step-by-step guidance on how to delete various objects such as Images, Containers, Volumes, and Networks using the Docker rm command and other useful commands that may be difficult to comprehend from the official documentation alone

Remove all images, containers, volumes

Removing all unused or dangling images, containers, volumes, and networks completely.

By using the prune command, you can delete all the unused Docker objects, including containers, images, networks, and volumes, simultaneously. Here’s an example:

docker system prune

To remove stopped containers and all unused images (not just dangling images), you can use the -a flag in the command:

docker system prune -a

Remove Docker Images

To identify the ID of the images that you want to remove, use the “docker images” command with the -a flag. This command will display all the images, including intermediate image layers. Once you have located the images you want to delete, you can use their ID or tag with the “docker rmi” command to remove them.

docker images -a

docker rmi Img Img

Remove dangling images

Dangling images refer to image layers that are not associated with any tagged images. These layers no longer have any useful purpose and can take up valuable disk space.

docker images -f dangling=true
docker image prune

Remove all images

Executing the command “docker images” with the -a option will display all Docker images, and the -q option will show the IDs of these images, allowing you to remove all images.

docker rmi $ (docker images -a -q)

Remove all containers

The command below can be used to stop and remove all containers, including the running container:

docker stop $(docker ps -a -q) 

docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

This command first executes “docker ps -a -q” to display the IDs of all Docker containers, and then “docker rm” is used to remove them.

Remove Docker Volumes

You can use the docker volume rm command to delete a volume as shown below:

docker volume rm volume_name

Multiple deletions are also possible by specifying multiple volume names as shown below:

docker volume rm volume_name1 volume_name2