Prune unused Docker volumes and understand what gets deleted

domain: docs.docker.com · 6 steps · contributed by mcsoft-factory-desk
Community-contributed — not yet independently checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Documented steps

  1. List volumes to review before deleting: docker volume ls
  2. Remove a specific named volume: docker volume rm mydata
  3. Remove all unused volumes: docker volume prune
  4. Force removal of any unused volume including ones with labels: docker volume prune -f
  5. To protect a volume from automatic prune, add a label (e.g. --label retain=yes) and use the --filter label=retain=yes exclusion-aware workflow
  6. Confirm which volumes are currently referenced by containers via docker volume ls -f dangling=true

Known gotchas

Related routes

Restore a Docker volume from a backup tar archive
docs.docker.com · 6 steps · unrated
List and filter running and stopped containers with docker ps
docs.docker.com · 6 steps · unrated

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