Where are Docker images stored on the host machine

Question

I managed to find the containers under directory  var lib docker containers  but I can t find the images   What are the directories and files under  var lib docker

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On the newly released  Docker for Windows   which uses Hyper-V  data is located in the Docker virtual hard disk  C  Users Public Documents Hyper-V Virtual hard disks MobyLinuxVM vhdx  You can also open the  Hyper-V Manager  for access to the Docker   MobyLinuxVM

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I use the boot2docker for Docker on Mac OSX  so the images is stored into the  Users  lt USERNAME gt  VirtualBox VMs boot2docker-vm boot2docker-vm vmdk

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For someone who is using Docker toolbox  that uses docker-machine   the answers concerning boot2docker on Mac OS X is not valid  The docker-machine VM is called  default  and it exists in the  Users  lt username gt   docker machine machines default  directory

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On Fedora  Docker uses LVM for storage if available  On my system docker info shows   Storage Driver  devicemapper  Pool Name  vg01-docker--pool  Pool Blocksize  524 3 kB  Base Device Size  10 74 GB  Backing Filesystem  xfs  Data file   Metadata file   Data Space Used  9 622 GB        In that case  to increase storage  you will have to use LVM command line tools or compatible partition managers like blivet

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In Docker for Windows  the logs are here   USERPROFILE  AppData Local Docker

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I can answer this question only for Ubuntu users   The root directory of docker can be found when you run the command docker info  Docker directory will be given in this line   Docker Root Dir   var lib docker   About the docker images  they are stored inside the docker directory    var lib docker aufs diff   Remember these things are not same in all version of docker  Currently  I am using 1 12 3

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For  Docker Desktop   click on docker system tray icon and click  Settings     On the Advanced tab  you can see the disk image location

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check for the docker folder in  var lib   the images are stored at below location    var lib docker image overlay2 imagedb content

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sudo docker info   grep -e  Root Dir

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In Docker for Windows  native Windows  the default container storage is at       gt  docker info           Docker Root Dir  C  ProgramData Docker

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According to the Docker Getting Started guide  your built image  is  in your machine   s local Docker image registry      This is still strange to me  because now it leads to the question   Where is my machine s local Docker image registry   Nevertheless  I definitely think this info is worth sharing as an answer

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In Windows 2016  docker  DockerMsftProvider  uses the folder  windowsfilter  under docker root   gt docker info     Storage Driver  windowsfilter     Docker Root Dir  C  ProgramData docker       It uses the  tmp  folder under docker root to download the files and it deletes the files after extracting the downloaded files to  windowsfilter  folder

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If anyone need it for scripting purposes  here is a one-line solution   In POSIX shell  with PCRE enabled grep  try   DOCKER ROOT DIR    docker info 2 gt  amp 1   grep -oP     lt   Docker Root Dir          In PowerShell    DOCKER ROOT DIR    docker info 2 gt  amp 1   foreach  if    -match  Docker Root Dir      TrimStart  Docker Root Dir          Note  when on Windows 10  as of 10 0 18999 1   in default configurations  it returns    C  ProgramData Docker in  Windows containers  mode  var lib docker  in  Linux containers  mode

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Use docker info command to display system-wide information and the location may vary   Depending on the storage driver in use  additional information can be shown  such as pool name  data file  metadata file  data space used  total data space  metadata space used  and total metadata space  The data file is where the images are stored and the metadata file is where the meta data regarding those images are stored  When run for the first time Docker allocates a certain amount of data space and meta data space from the space available on the volume where  var lib docker is mounted   Here is the example on Ubuntu  check Root Dir     docker info     Server Version  18 06 1-ce Storage Driver  aufs  Root Dir   var snap docker common var-lib-docker aufs     Docker Root Dir   var snap docker common var-lib-docker      And here is the example on Travis CI  see Docker Root Dir     docker info Server Version  17 09 0-ce Storage Driver  overlay2  Backing Filesystem  extfs     Docker Root Dir   var lib docker      You can use --format parameter to extract that information into a single file  e g    docker info --format     DriverStatus      Root Dir  var snap docker common var-lib-docker aufs   Backing Filesystem extfs   Dirs 265   Dirperm1 Supported true    or    docker info --format    json  DriverStatus       quot Root Dir quot   quot  var snap docker common var-lib-docker aufs quot     quot Backing Filesystem quot   quot extfs quot     quot Dirs quot   quot 265 quot     quot Dirperm1 Supported quot   quot true quot

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ENV OS  fedora 29 x86 64 workstation Docker   user localhost     docker --version Docker version 19 03 5  build 633a0ea838  Image info   quot DockerVersion quot    quot 18 09 7 quot   The images should stored in  var lib docker overlay2 by default   MY EXAMPLE Show images   user localhost     docker images REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE neo4j               latest              8ed7463b8476        12 months ago       548MB hello-world         latest              fce289e99eb9        2 years ago         1 84kB  The image size is 548M  See the image information of 8ed7463b8476   user localhost     docker image inspect 8ed7463b8476                    quot DockerVersion quot    quot 18 09 7 quot                      quot GraphDriver quot                  quot Data quot                      quot LowerDir quot    quot  var lib docker overlay2  66dc24704d7ea5f1a5dee0bf4a5297cb78bcbd0d4b36206b8cca62cd4de7f2b1 diff   var lib docker overlay2  5ab91cf721359d43d01038233d397fd9ed1c4b3857c0c7d9a2dd7f2ac5eccad0 diff   var lib docker overlay2  e82fdf7ee3e37db0a11d9ca309245ae852425d24d6f5d3313dcf604cdddb397b diff   var lib docker overlay2  9394543085d467010d0468fffb388e5616a89e2cf16c1c2b7b31aee4e542ae69 diff   var lib docker overlay2  c7c7a16e3dbaeea1a3a3b0bbca39f34f08f6b8ab15d753e6e68f9851c80d95b4 diff   var lib docker overlay2  3b470afdf8939b45159f3171f0bef2a27085b4b980e09f0c666fbdc58b944d97 diff   var lib docker overlay2  463ba63f79eb6b2f5466e7b71041bc346a8e9c4ebddd34d23422c719824a2340 diff quot                     Let s see the size of these folders   user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 66dc24704d7ea5f1a5dee0bf4a5297cb78bcbd0d4b36206b8cca62cd4de7f2b1 141M     var lib docker overlay2 66dc24704d7ea5f1a5dee0bf4a5297cb78bcbd0d4b36206b8cca62cd4de7f2b1  user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 5ab91cf721359d43d01038233d397fd9ed1c4b3857c0c7d9a2dd7f2ac5eccad0  28K  var lib docker overlay2 5ab91cf721359d43d01038233d397fd9ed1c4b3857c0c7d9a2dd7f2ac5eccad0   user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 e82fdf7ee3e37db0a11d9ca309245ae852425d24d6f5d3313dcf604cdddb397b  100K     var lib docker overlay2 e82fdf7ee3e37db0a11d9ca309245ae852425d24d6f5d3313dcf604cdddb397b   user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 9394543085d467010d0468fffb388e5616a89e2cf16c1c2b7b31aee4e542ae69  310M     var lib docker overlay2 9394543085d467010d0468fffb388e5616a89e2cf16c1c2b7b31aee4e542ae69   user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 c7c7a16e3dbaeea1a3a3b0bbca39f34f08f6b8ab15d753e6e68f9851c80d95b4  36K  var lib docker overlay2 c7c7a16e3dbaeea1a3a3b0bbca39f34f08f6b8ab15d753e6e68f9851c80d95b4   user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 3b470afdf8939b45159f3171f0bef2a27085b4b980e09f0c666fbdc58b944d97  9 5M     var lib docker overlay2 3b470afdf8939b45159f3171f0bef2a27085b4b980e09f0c666fbdc58b944d97   user localhost     sudo du -sh  var lib docker overlay2 463ba63f79eb6b2f5466e7b71041bc346a8e9c4ebddd34d23422c719824a2340  76M  var lib docker overlay2 463ba63f79eb6b2f5466e7b71041bc346a8e9c4ebddd34d23422c719824a2340   We can see the size that is close to 548M  We also can save image to an output file   user localhost     docker save -o neo4j image tar 8ed7463b8476  user localhost     du -sh neo4j image tar  528M    neo4j image tar  We can extract the package file and check the sizes of files in the package   user localhost neo4j image   du -sh   16K 2f0dd5fb60a940719a3e781133611cc64c2acded03bd47e04b0997fd0c1dae50 8 7M    73819037a38eabeb7c622533e4058c84f5ff106475a1aba78a278f8b36c172f7 309M    8d31d715b324a2ae3ccb1577e981d492f40e34db6371f0858da925ef02b5762e 12K 8ed7463b84760f09b1b86a732ee6f295baaadffe72ce4fdb7ad306fe5e096bbb json 36K 966e726ff1d9be9dca68014cda6f1ecf974365c553b82ea3834fff5d73ea593e 70M a32776b9621e916e8714389b1037bf47253a2d3d1c806ad515623d2150c92485 60K d82868a318b95466f213136f81cd7258518744da72f46ca51b04b35f2351f46a 16K e62169d79fab44bebb0a455b01af5f636bace7673a1d38fc092daad77d51cd0e 141M    fe8014622f7933e178b9005deffda3eb4828703eb7eca93b5485232930e3916b 4 0K    manifest json  We also can archive the folder  var lib docker overlay2  to compare the size of the package to image files  The size is close to the image size either

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use docker inspect container id find folder under MergedDir    example    MergedDir     var lib docker overlay2 f40cc2ea8912ec3b32deeef5a1542a132f6e918acb merged

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On Ubuntu you can  play  with images running   sudo baobab  var lib docker   Actually  images are stored within  var lib docker aufs diff

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Images are stored inside  var lib docker and then under applicable storage driver directory    Storage driver  being used  can be determined by executing docker info command

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When using Docker for Mac Application  it appears that the containers are stored within the VM located at     Library Containers com docker docker Data com docker driver amd64-linux Docker qcow2   UPDATE  Courtesy of mmorin    As of Jan 15 2019 it seems there is only this file     Library Containers com docker docker Data vms 0 Docker raw   that contains the Docker Disk and all the images and containers within it

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The contents of the  var lib docker directory vary depending on the driver Docker is using for storage    By default this will be aufs but can fall back to overlay  overlay2  btrfs  devicemapper or zfs depending on your kernel support  In most places this will be aufs but the RedHats went with devicemapper   You can manually set the storage driver with the -s or --storage-driver  option to the Docker daemon      var lib docker  driver-name  will contain the driver specific storage for contents of the images    var lib docker graph  lt id gt  now only contains metadata about the image  in the json and layersize files    In the case of aufs     var lib docker aufs diff  lt id gt  has the file contents of the images   var lib docker repositories-aufs is a JSON file containing local image information  This can be viewed with the command docker images    In the case of devicemapper     var lib docker devicemapper devicemapper data stores the images  var lib docker devicemapper devicemapper metadata the metadata Note these files are thin provisioned  sparse  files so aren t as big as they seem

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I couldn t resolve the question with Docker version 18 09 on macos using the above answers and tried again   The only actual solution for me was using this docker-compose yml configuration   version   3 7        services      demo-service        volumes          - data-volume  var tmp container-volume  volumes    data-volume      driver  local     driver opts        type  none       o  bind       device   tmp host-volume   After launching with docker-compose up I finally had  tmp host-volume from macos shared as writeable volume from within the container    gt  docker exec -it 1234  bin bash bash-4 4  df Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use  Mounted on     osxfs                488347692 464780044  21836472  96   var tmp container-volume   Hope this helps others too

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Actually  Docker images are stored in two files as shown by following command    docker info      Data file   var lib docker devicemapper devicemapper data      Metadata file   var lib docker devicemapper devicemapper metadata

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If you are using Docker for MAC  not boot2docker  then the location is  Users  lt  lt   gt UserName gt  lt   gt  Library Containers com docker docker Data

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On Debian Unstable Sid   docker info to find system-wide information   images are stored at  var lib docker image overlay2 imagedb content and  containers are stored at  var lib docker containers  docker version 18 06 0-ce  API version 1 38

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Expanding on Tristan s answer  in Windows with Hyper-V you can move the image with these steps from matthuisman      In Windows 10          Stop docker etc   Type  Hyper-V Manager  in task-bar search box and run it    Select your PC in the left hand pane  Mine is called   DESKTOP-CBP      Right click on the correct virtual machine  Mine is   called MobyLinuxVM    Select  Turn off   If it is running    Right click on it again and select  Move    Follow the prompts

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this was the old way of doing  now it has changed  Disregard this answer as of 2019  In the special case of Mac OS X or Windows  using boot2docker  your Docker images are stored within a VirtualBox VM managed by boot2docker   This VM will be stored in normal place of VirtualBox images    nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp OS X    VirtualBox VMs boot2docker-vm   nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp  nbsp Windows   USERPROFILE  VirtualBox VMs boot2docker-vm  You can reset it by running  WARNING  This will destroy all images you ve built and downloaded so far    boot2docker down boot2docker destroy boot2docker init boot2docker up   This is especially useful if you kept tons of intermediate images when building   debugging a build without the useful --rm options  I quote them here for reference  Use   docker build -t webapp --rm true --force-rm true     instead of   docker build -t webapp

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If you keep in mind that Docker is still running in a VM  the system paths are relative to the VM and not from the Mac Osx system   As it says all is contained in a VM file         Users MyUserName Library Containers com docker docker Data com docker driver amd64-linux Docker qcow2   Try to run Alpine image with this volume option and the ls command you are able to list the VM host       docker run --rm -it -v    vm-root alpine edge ls -l  vm-root   After this just try        docker run --rm -it -v    vm-root alpine edge ls -l    vm-root var lib docker   Now  you are able to list the docker folder from the VM host

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Environment  Windows 10 Pro  docker desktop 2 0 3 0 edge  right-click docker icon in system tray  select settings - advanced    Disk image location  editable via the browser       C  Users Public Documents Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disks DockerDesktop vhdx   it s there - Documents directory is hidden

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The images are stored in  var lib docker graph  lt id gt  layer   Note that images are just diffs from the parent image  The parent ID is stored with the image s metadata  var lib docker graph  lt id gt  json   When you docker run an image  AUFS will  merge  all layers into one usable file system

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As answered here  if you re on Mac  it is located at    Users MyUserName Library Containers com docker docker Data com docker driver amd64-linux Docker qcow2

[docker] Where are Docker images stored on the host machine?

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