Remove All Docker Images

The short answer

To remove (delete) all locally installed Docker images from your machine, you can use a combination of the  docker rmi  and the  docker images  commands as follows:

 $ docker rmi $(docker images -a -q)

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Here, the  docker images  command is used to show the list of all locally installed images. The  -a   flag (short for  --all )  is used to list all images, including the intermediate images that are hidden by default. The  -q   flag (short for  --quiet)  is used to only show the image ID.

The  docker rmi  command, on the other hand, is used to delete one or more specific images.

Here is an example of what this command may look like right before being executed by the shell:

 $ docker rmi 0c717bfd9ec0 3e4394f6b72f a8780b506fa4

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Note that if one or more containers are still using any of the images you are trying to delete, Docker will output an error message saying that the image is in use and cannot be deleted. In this case, you will need to stop and remove those containers first before you can delete all images (see section below).

Easily retrieve this command using Warp’s AI Command Search

If you’re using Warp as your terminal, you can easily retrieve this command using the Warp AI Command Search feature:

Entering  docker remove all images  in the AI Command Search will prompt a  docker  command that can then quickly be inserted into your shell by doing  CMD+ENTER .

Remove unused images only

To delete all dangling images, which means images that have neither a repository nor a name tag, you can use the following  docker   command:

 $ docker image prune

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To delete all unused images (i.e. not referenced by any container) including dangling ones, you can use the  -a   flag (short for  --all ) as follows:

 $ docker image prune -a

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Remove all images and containers at once

To remove all images and containers on your local machine, you must first stop any currently running container using a combination of the  docker stop  command and the  docker ps  command:

 $ docker stop $(docker ps -q)

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Where  docker stop  will stop running containers and  docker ps -q  will list the ID of all running containers. 

Once all containers are stopped, you can remove them using the  docker rm  command:

 $ docker rm $(docker ps -a -q)

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Where the  -a  flag of the  docker ps   command is used to list all containers including stopped ones. See our post on removing stopped Docker containers for more details.

Finally, you can remove all locally installed images using the  docker rmi  command:

 $ docker rmi $(docker images -aq)

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The difference between docker rmi  and docker image prune

While both commands are used to deal with the removal of Docker images, they have different functionalities.

The  docker rmi   command is used to delete one or more specific Docker images based on their name or identifier.

The  docker image prune  command, on the other hand, is used to clean up all unused Docker images including dangling ones.