How to remove old Docker containers

Question

This question is related to Should I be concerned about excess  non-running  Docker containers    I m wondering how to remove old containers  The docker rm 3e552code34a lets you remove a single one  but I have lots already  docker rm --help doesn t give a selection option  like all  or by image name    Maybe there is a directory in which these containers are stored where I can delete them easily manually

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On Ubuntu 14 04  Trusty Tahr      for CON in  docker ps -qa   do docker rm  CON   done   This is just a normal Bash command so it should work with EVERY Bash-compliant terminal

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Remove all containers created from a certain image  docker rm    docker ps -a   awk   myimage mytag  print  1

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I am suggesting you to stop the images first and then remove   You could go like     docker stop   docker ps -a    docker rm   docker ps -a

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I found the below command is very handy to stop and remove all the containers  You don t need to stop explicitly with another command if you are using the -f  force  flag as it stops all running containers   docker rm -f   docker ps -a -q

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You can remove only stopped containers  Stop all of them in the beginning  docker stop   docker ps -a -q   Then you can remove  docker rm   docker ps -a -q

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Remove 5 oldest containers   docker rm  docker ps -aq   tail -n 5    See how many containers there are left   docker ps -aq   wc -l

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This process contains two steps  stop and remove     Stop the container that is being used by any running microservices  docker stop   docker ps -a -q   Remove all the containers  docker rm   docker ps -a -q   Remove single container  docker rm container-ID

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bin bash   docker-gc --- Remove stopped docker containers  RUNNING   docker ps -q  ALL   docker ps -a -q   for container in  ALL   do          RUNNING       container      amp  amp  continue     echo Removing container    docker rm  container  done

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With Docker 1 13  Q4 2016   you now have   docker system prune -a will delete ALL unused data  i e   in order  containers stopped  volumes without containers and  images with no containers    docker system prune without -a will remove  for images  only dangling images  or images without a tag  as commented by smilebomb   See PR 26108 and commit 86de7c0  which are introducing a few new commands to help facilitate visualizing how much space the Docker daemon data is taking on disk and allowing for easily cleaning up  unneeded  excess   docker system prune -a  WARNING  This will remove      - all stopped containers     - all volumes not used by at least one container     - all images without at least one container associated to them Are you sure you want to continue   y N  y   As wjv comments       There is also docker  container image volume network  prune  which may be used to remove unused instances of just one type of object      Introduced in commit 913e5cb  only for Docker 1 13    docker container prune

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If you do not like to remove all containers  you can select all containers created before or after a specific container with docker ps -f before  lt container-ID gt  or with docker ps -f since  lt container-ID gt  Let s say you have developed your system  and now it is working  but there are a number of containers left  You want to remove containers created before that working version  Determine the ID of the working container with docker ps  Remove containers created before an other container docker rm   docker ps -f before 9c49c11c8d21 -q   Another example  You have your database already running on a Docker container  You have developed your application to run on another container and now you have a number of unneeded containers  Remove containers created after a certain container docker rm   docker ps -f since a6ca4661ec7f -q   Docker stores containers in  var lib docker containers in Ubuntu  I think extra containers do no other harm  but take up disk space

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I always use docker rmi   docker ps -a -q  to remove all images   You can remove directory  var lib docker graph when docker rmi failed

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It is now possible to use filtering with docker ps   docker rm   docker ps -q -f status exited    And for images   docker rmi   docker images -q -f  dangling true     However  any of those will cause docker rm or docker rmi to throw an error when there are no matching containers  The older docker rm   docker ps -aq  trick was even worse as it tried to remove any running container  failing at each one   Here s a cleaner script to add in your    bashrc or    profile      Use  docker-cleanup --dry-run  to see what would be deleted   function docker-cleanup     EXITED   docker ps -q -f status exited    DANGLING   docker images -q -f  dangling true      if     1      --dry-run     then     echo     gt  Would stop containers       echo  EXITED     echo     gt  And images       echo  DANGLING   else     if   -n   EXITED     then       docker rm  EXITED     else       echo  No containers to remove       fi     if   -n   DANGLING     then       docker rmi  DANGLING     else       echo  No images to remove       fi   fi     Edit  As noted below  original answer was for removing images  not containers  Updated to answer both  including new links to documentation  Thanks to Adrian  and Ryan s answer  for mentioning the new ps filtering

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UPDATED 2021  NEWEST  docker container prune   This - 2017  OLD  way To remove ALL STOPPED CONTAINERS docker rm   docker ps -a -q   To remove ALL CONTAINERS  STOPPED AND NON STOPPED  docker rm  -f   docker ps -a -q

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docker rm -f   docker ps -a -q  will do the trick  It will stop the containers and remove them too

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You can use the following command to remove the exited containers   docker rm   sudo docker ps -a   grep Exit   cut -d     -f 1    Here is the full gist to also remove the old images on docker  Gist to remove old Docker containers and images

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New way   spotify docker-gc play the trick    docker run --rm -v  var run docker sock  var run docker sock -v  etc  etc spotify docker-gc    Containers that exited more than an hour ago are removed  Images that don t belong to any remaining container after that are removed   It has supported environmental settings  Forcing deletion of images that have multiple tags   FORCE IMAGE REMOVAL 1   Forcing deletion of containers   FORCE CONTAINER REMOVAL 1    Excluding Recently Exited Containers and Images From Garbage Collection   GRACE PERIOD SECONDS 86400   This setting also prevents the removal of images that have been created less than GRACE PERIOD SECONDS seconds ago   Dry run   DRY RUN 1   Cleaning up orphaned container volumes      CLEAN UP VOLUMES 1  Reference  docker-gc  Old way to do   delete old  non-running containers   docker ps -a -q -f status exited   xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rm              OR   docker rm   docker ps -a -q    delete all images associated with non-running docker containers   docker images -q   xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rmi   cleanup orphaned docker volumes for docker version 1 10 x and above   docker volume ls -qf dangling true   xargs -r docker volume rm   Based on time period   docker ps -a   grep  weeks ago    awk   print  1     xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rm  docker ps -a   grep  days ago    awk   print  1     xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rm  docker ps -a   grep  hours ago    awk   print  1     xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rm

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Update  As of Docker version 1 13  released January 2017   you can issue the following command to clean up stopped containers  unused volumes  dangling images and unused networks   docker system prune   If you want to insure that you re only deleting containers which have an exited status  use this   docker ps -aq -f status exited   xargs docker rm   Similarly  if you re cleaning up docker stuff  you can get rid of untagged  unnamed images in this way   docker images -q --no-trunc -f dangling true   xargs docker rmi

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You can use docker-helper from the repository https   github com kartoza docker-helpers  After the install  just type drmc

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List all containers  only IDs   docker ps -aq   Stop all running containers  docker stop   docker ps -aq    Remove all containers  docker rm   docker ps -aq    Remove all images  docker rmi   docker images -q

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On windows  powershell  you could do something like this    containers   docker ps -a -q foreach   container in  containers   docker rm  container -f

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Remove all docker processes    docker rm   docker ps -a -q   Remove specific container     docker ps -a  lists all old containers     docker rm container-Id

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First  stop running containers before attempting to remove them Remove running containers docker rm   docker stop -t 1   docker ps -q    You could use kill instead of stop  In my case I prefer stop since I tend to rerun them vs  creating a new one every time so I try to shut them down nicely  Note  Trying to stop a container will give you an error   Error  Impossible to remove a running container  please stop it first  Remove all containers docker rm   docker ps -a -q

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Here is a script to remove both running and exited containers created longer than 2 days      bin bash   This script will kill and remove containers older than 2 days    docker ps -aq  gt   scripts containers txt today  date   Y- m- d  oldate  date --date  2 day ago    Y- m- d  while read p  do     cont  docker inspect -f      Created      p   cut -c 1-10      echo   Created date of  p is  cont      k  echo         date -ud  today    s   -   date -ud  cont    s    60 60 24         echo  k     if    k -ge 2        then             echo  Killing docker container  p              docker kill  p             echo  Removing docker container  p              docker rm  p     else             echo  Docker container  p is not one day old  so keeping the container       fi done  lt  scripts containers txt

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Updated Answer Use docker system prune or docker container prune now  See VonC s updated answer   Previous Answer Composing several different hints above  the most elegant way to remove all non-running containers seems to be   docker rm   docker ps -q -f status exited    -q prints just the container ids  without column headers  -f allows you to filter your list of printed containers  in this case we are filtering to only show exited containers

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https   github com HardySimpson docker-cleanup  Docker cleanup  A tiny all-in-one shell  which removes    Containers that not running more than one day ago Images that don t belong to any remaining container   Intend to run as a crontab job  Feature   It will remove all  lt none gt   lt none gt  images If the image has multiple repo tag references to it  it will remove all repo tag except with running a container  Actually it is a nature of  docker rmi   Many error message will be show on screen  and you can decide to 2 gt  dev null or not Learn something from docker-gc  and fix its problem  it can not remove image that has mutliple repo tag

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Try this command to clean containers and dangling images  docker system prune -a

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The basic steps to stop remove all containers and images  List all the containers docker ps -aq  Stop all running containers docker stop   docker ps -aq   Remove all containers docker rm   docker ps -aq   Remove all images docker rmi   docker images -q    Note  First you have to stop all the running containers before you remove them  Also before removing an image  you have to stop and remove its dependent container s

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To delete a specify container  docker container rm container id   If the container is running  you have to stop it before to delete it  docker container stop container id   And this command is to delete all existing containers  docker container rm   docker container -a -q

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If you want to automatically periodically clean up exited containers and remove images and volumes that aren t in use by a running container you can download the image meltwater docker-cleanup   I use this in production since we deploy several times a day on multiple servers  and I don t want to go to every server to clean up  that would be a pain    Just run   docker run -d -v  var run docker sock  var run docker sock rw  -v  var lib docker  var lib docker rw --restart unless-stopped meltwater docker-cleanup latest   It will run every 30 minutes by default  or however long you set it using DELAY TIME 1800 option  and clean up exited containers and images   More details  Docker Cleanup

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bin bash  echo Cleanup unused containers unused containers   docker ps -a -q --filter  status exited   if    -n  unused containers    then   docker rm  unused containers fi  echo Cleanup unused images unused images   docker images   grep    lt none gt     awk   print  3    if    -n  unused images    then   docker rmi  unused images fi

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For anyone interested  I took the example from qkrijger and turned it into a clear all  stop and remove all   docker stop  docker ps --no-trunc -aq    docker rm  docker ps --no-trunc -aq

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You can use some of the Docker UI applications to remove containers   Sorry for advertisement  but I always use my own application to do the same things  You can try it if you are looking for a simple application to manage Docker images or containers  https   github com alex-agency AMHub   This is a Docker UI web application which is running inside a Docker container  For installing it  you only need invoke this command   docker run -d -p 80 80 -p 8000 8000 -e DOCKER   which docker  -v  var run docker sock  docker sock alexagency amhub

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Use the following nested commands     sudo docker stop   sudo docker ps -a -q    This command stops all running containers     sudo docker rm   sudo docker ps -a -q    This command remove all containers

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Here is my docker-cleanup script  which removes untagged containers and images  Please check the source for any updates      bin sh   Cleanup docker files  untagged containers and images      Use  docker-cleanup -n  for a dry run to see what would be deleted   untagged containers         Print containers using untagged images   1 is used with awk s print  0 line  1 column 1    docker ps -a   awk   2     0-9a-f  12    print    1       untagged images         Print untagged images   1 is used with awk s print  0 line  3 column 3      NOTE  intermediate images  via -a  seem to only cause      Error  Conflict  foobarid wasn t deleted  messages      Might be useful sometimes when Docker messed things up       docker images -a   awk   1      lt none gt    print    1      docker images   tail -n  2   awk   1      lt none gt    print    1         Dry-run  if     1     -n     then   echo      Containers with uncommitted images         untagged containers 0   echo    echo      Uncommitted images         untagged images 0    exit fi    Remove containers with untagged images  echo  Removing containers    gt  amp 2 untagged containers 1   xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rm --volumes true    Remove untagged images echo  Removing images    gt  amp 2 untagged images 3   xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rmi   Source  https   github com blueyed dotfiles blob master usr bin docker-cleanup

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To remove ALL containers   sudo docker ps -a   grep -v CONTAINER   awk   print  1     xargs --no-run-if-empty sudo docker rm -f   Explanation   sudo docker ps -a   Returns a list of containers   awk   print  1     Gets the first column which is the container ID   grep -v CONTAINER   Remove the title   The last pipe sends the IDs to sudo docker rm -f safely

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Removing older Docker containers is very easy   List all the containers   docker ps -a docker ps  To list the running containers    Once you hit docker ps -a  it will give you list of containers along with the container id  which is unique and combination of a-z  A-Z and 0-9   Copy the container id you wanted to remove and simply hit the below   docker rm container id   Your container will be removed along with the layers created in  var lib docker aufs  if you are using Ubuntu

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This short script might help  compiled from previous answers       bin bash    Remove dangling images  IMAGE IDS   sudo docker images -f  dangling true  -q   if   -n   IMAGE IDS     then      sudo docker rmi  IMAGE IDS  gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1     echo  Images removed   IMAGE IDS fi     Remove exited containers  CONTAINER IDS   sudo docker ps -a -q -f status exited   if   -n   CONTAINER IDS     then      sudo docker rm -v  CONTAINER IDS  gt   dev null 2 gt  amp 1     echo  Containers remove  CONTAINER IDS  fi

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From my experience  you should stop containers before removing them to avoid things like  this container is still running  kind of errors  so   sudo  usr bin docker ps -aq    awk   print  1       xargs --no-run-if-empty bash -c  sudo docker stop     sudo docker rm     bash   I keep an alias in my dotfiles like   alias wipedocker  sudo  usr bin docker ps -aq    awk   print  1       xargs --no-run-if-empty bash -c  sudo docker stop     sudo docker rm     bash

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I wanted to add this simple answer as I didn t see it  and the question is specifically  quot old quot  not  quot all quot   sudo docker container prune --filter  quot until 24h quot  Adjust the 24h for whatever time span you want to remove containers that are older than

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So  personally I recommend doing this as part of your deploy script for both images and containers  keeping only the most recent n containers and images  I tag my Docker images with the same versioning schema I use with git tag as well as always tagging the latest Docker image with  latest   This means that without cleaning up anything  my Docker images wind up looking like   REPOSITORY              TAG       IMAGE ID        CREATED         VIRTUAL SIZE some repo some image    0 0 5     8f1a7c7ba93c    23 hours ago    925 4 MB some repo some image    latest    8f1a7c7ba93c    23 hours ago    925 4 MB some repo some image    0 0 4     0beabfa514ea    45 hours ago    925 4 MB some repo some image    0 0 3     54302cd10bf2    6 days ago      978 5 MB some repo some image    0 0 2     0078b30f3d9a    7 days ago      978 5 MB some repo some image    0 0 1     sdfgdf0f3d9a    8 days ago      938 5 MB   Now  of course I don t want to keep all my images  or containers  going back to perpetuity on all my production boxes  I just want the last 3 or 4 for rollbacks and to get rid of everything else  Unix s tail is your best friend here  Since docker images and docker ps both order by date  we can just use tail to select all but the top three and remove them   docker rmi   docker images -q   tail -n  4    Run that along with your deploy scripts  or locally  to always keep just enough images to comfortably roll back without taking up too much room or cluttering stuff up with old images   Personally  I only keep one container on my production box at any time  but you can do the same sort of thing with containers if you want more   docker rm   docker ps -aq   tail -n  4    Finally  in my simplified example we re only dealing with one repository at a time  but if you had more  you can just get a bit more sophisticated with the same idea  Say I just want to keep the last three images from some repo some image  I can just mix in grep and awk and be on my way   docker rmi   docker images -a   grep  some repo some image    awk   print  3     tail -n  4    Again  the same idea applies to containers  but you get it by this point so I ll stop giving examples

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Another method  which I got from Guillaume J  Charmes  credit where it is due    docker rm  docker ps --no-trunc -aq    will remove all containers in an elegant way   And by Bartosz Bilicki  for Windows   FOR  f  tokens     i IN   docker ps -a -q   DO docker rm  i   For PowerShell   docker rm   docker ps -aq      An update with Docker 1 13  Q4 2016   credit to VonC  later in this thread    docker system prune will delete ALL unused data  i e   in order  containers stopped  volumes without containers and images with no containers    See PR 26108 and commit 86de7c0  which are introducing a few new commands to help facilitate visualizing how much space the Docker daemon data is taking on disk and allowing for easily cleaning up  unneeded  excess   docker system prune  WARNING  This will remove      - all stopped containers     - all volumes not used by at least one container     - all images without at least one container associated to them Are you sure you want to continue   y N  y

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I m using   docker rm -v   docker ps -a -q -f status exited    to delete exited containers and   docker rmi -f   docker images   grep   lt none gt     awk   print   3      in order to get rid of all untagged images

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Removing all containers from Windows shell   FOR  f  tokens     i IN   docker ps -a -q   DO docker rm  i

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If you want to remove all containers then use      docker container prune    This command will remove all containers   Why not clean whole docker system with     docker system prune

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These two lines of Bash will filter containers by some keywords before deleting them   containers to keep   docker ps -a   grep  keep  Up  registry latest  nexus    awk    print  1     containers to delete   docker ps -a   grep Exited   grep -Fv   containers to keep    awk    print  1     docker rm  containers to delete   From this post

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docker rm --force  docker ps -qa

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I use variations of the following   docker ps -a   grep  cassandra  Exited    cut -d     -f 1   The first part lists all processes    The second selects just those that have  cassandra  followed by  Exited    The third  removes all the tests after the image ID  so you get a list of image ids   So   docker rm   docker ps -a   grep  cassandra  Exited    cut -d     -f 1

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To remove ALL stopped docker containers  run -    docker container prune   You ll have to be careful with this command since it removes all stopped containers indiscriminately so make sure there s no stopped currently unused container that you may still have use of    A more precise alternative is to remove the container by ID  You ll have to first list the stopped containers using this command -  docker ps --filter  status exited    You ll then copy the ID of the container you want to remove  Thereafter  execute the following command that removes a single container   docker container rm  lt container ID gt    or the one below to remove multiple containers at once by running -  docker container rm  lt container ID 1 gt   lt container ID 2 gt   lt container ID n gt

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You can remove the containers using multiple ways that I will explain them in the rest of the answer    docker container prune  This command removes the all of the containers that are not working right now  You can find out which containers are not working by comparing the output of docker ps and docker ps -a  The containers that are listed in docker ps -a and not exist in docker ps are not working right now  but their containers aren t removed  docker kill   docker ps -aq   What this command does is that by executing   docker ps -aq  it returns the list of ids of all containers and kill them  Sometime this command doesn t work because it is  being using by the running container  To make that work  you can use --force option  docker rm   docker ps -aq   It has the same definition as the second command  The only difference of them is that it removes the container  as same as docker prune   while the docker kill doesn t  Sometimes it is needed to remove the image  because you have changed the configuration of the Dockerfile and need to remove it to rebuild it  For this purpose you can see all of the images by running docker images and then copy the ID of the image that you want to remove  It can be deleted simply by executing docker image rm  lt image-id gt     PS  You can use docker ps -a -q instead of docker ps -aq and there is no differences  Because in unix-based operating system  you can join the options like the above example

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The official way is   docker rm  docker ps -aq    The Docker maintainers have indicated there will be no command for this - and you compose the commands like that      We have discussed this before and prefer users to use the above line without having to add additional code to Docker

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Here is a one-liner that removes all the exited containers   docker rm   docker ps -a   grep Exited   grep -v CON   awk   print  1     If you want to remove ALL the images you can use something like this   docker rmi   docker images   sed -n  1 p    awk   print  3

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To get rid of your stopped container you can use   docker rm  lt cointainer id gt    You can also use the name of the container   docker rm  lt name gt    If you want to get rid of all the stopped containers you can use the   docker container prune   Or you can also use   docker rm   docker ps -aq -f status exited    You can use -v argument to delete any docker managed volumes that are not referenced any further  docker rm -v   docker ps -aq -f status exited    You can also use --rm with the docker run  This will delete the container and the associated files when the container exists

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To simply remove everything that is not currently used by a running container the following alias  that I usually put into the  bash profile on my Mac  will help   alias dockerclean  docker ps -q -a   xargs docker rm -v  amp  amp  docker images -q   xargs docker rmi    Whenever dockerclean is invoked from the command line it will remove stopped containers as well as unused image layers  For running containers and used images it will print a warning message and skip over it

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For Windows you can run this to stop and delete all containers   echo off FOR  f  quot tokens   quot    i IN   docker ps -q   DO docker stop   i FOR  f  quot tokens   quot    i IN   docker ps -aq   DO docker rm   i FOR  f  quot tokens   quot    i IN   docker images --format  quot    ID   quot    DO docker rmi   i  You can save it as a  bat file and can run to do that

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Since Docker 1 13 x you can use Docker container prune   docker container prune   This will remove all stopped containers and should work on all platforms the same way   There is also a Docker system prune   docker system prune   which will clean up all unused containers  networks  images  both dangling and unreferenced   and optionally  volumes  in one command     For older Docker versions  you can string Docker commands together with other Unix commands to get what you need  Here is an example on how to clean up old containers that are weeks old     docker ps --filter  status exited    grep  weeks ago    awk   print  1     xargs --no-run-if-empty docker rm   To give credit  where it is due  this example is from https   twitter com jpetazzo status 347431091415703552

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Remove all stopped containers   docker rm   docker ps -a   grep Exited   awk   print  1      From the comment by pauk960      Since version 1 3 0 you can use filters with docker ps  instead of grep Exited use docker ps -a -f status exited  And if you use -q with it you can get container IDs only instead of full output  no need to use awk for that

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Use   docker rm -f   docker ps -a -q    It forcefully stops and removes all containers present locally

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I am using following commands to delete Exited and Restarting docker containers  docker stop --force   docker ps -a grep Exited  awk   print  1    docker rm --force   docker ps -a grep Exited  awk   print  1    docker stop --force   docker ps -a grep Restarting  awk   print  1    docker rm --force   docker ps -a grep Restarting  awk   print  1      Using below command to remove images named as none  docker image rm --force   docker image ls   grep none  awk   print  3

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Use the docker management tool Portainer   We can manage all the old containers  non using volumes and images by using this tool  Its a simple management UI for dockers  HOW TO DEPLOY PORTAINER   Use the following Docker commands to deploy Portainer     docker volume create portainer data   docker run -d -p 9000 9000 -v  var run docker sock  var run docker sock -v portainer data  data portainer portainer   You ll just need to access the port 9000 of the Docker engine where portainer is running using your browser   Note  the -v  var run docker sock  var run docker sock option can be used in Linux environments only

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You can stop the docker container and once it is stopped you can remove the container   Stop the container     docker stop  containerID    - you can also mention the first two letters of the container ID  and it works   Remove the container    docker rm  containerID     - again you can also mention the first two letters of the container  If these command do not let you stop remove the containers  m ake sure you have sudo access to docker host

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For a Linux installation make sure you use sudo  Also it s good to look for images that are months and weeks old   sudo docker ps -a   grep  weeks ago  months ago          awk   print  1     xargs --no-run-if-empty sudo docker rm

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Remove all stopped containers      sudo docker rm   sudo docker ps -a -q    This will remove all stopped containers by getting a list of all containers with docker ps -a -q and passing their ids to docker rm  This should not remove any running containers  and it will tell you it can   t remove a running image   Remove all untagged images  Now you want to clean up old images to save some space      sudo docker rmi   sudo docker images -q --filter  dangling true

[docker] How to remove old Docker containers

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