Location of docker images downloaded by Docker (1.9.1) on Mac OS X
MacosDockerMacos Problem Overview
Where are the docker images located once they are downloaded from docker hub in Mac OSX. For example if I run a command like:
docker run hello-world
the image is downloaded and the container is run but where is that image located on my system?
Note: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19234831/where-are-docker-images-stored-on-the-host-machine This question has answers related to linux machine, mainly. The answers for Mac OS X are considering that boot2docker is being used alongside docker installation, which is not the case for me.
Macos Solutions
Solution 1 - Macos
And if you are using Docker for Mac then the location is again different, namely:
/Users/MyUserName/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/com.docker.driver.amd64-linux/Docker.qcow2
Solution 2 - Macos
The Disk image location can also be seen (as mentioned in the docs) by selecting Preferences->Advanced menu from the Docker toolbar icon (works in Docker-CE v17):
Update: As mentioned by @udondan Docker now has a separate 'Disk' tab in Preferences where it shows the disk image location:
Solution 3 - Macos
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 /Users/<username>/.docker/machine/machines/default/ directory.
Note: I have also added this answer to this question: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19234831/where-are-docker-images-stored-on-the-host-machine but I am answering here as well so that it's easier to find the answer for someone specifically looking for Mac OS X and new version of Docker.
Solution 4 - Macos
The docker images are stored in a different location on the Mac with Docker Desktop, different to where they are stored on other Linux systems.
Extract from Docker documentation (retrieved 25 March 2020 from https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/space/ )
> Docker Desktop stores Linux containers and images in a single, large > “disk image” file in the Mac filesystem. This is different from Docker > on Linux, which usually stores containers and images in the > /var/lib/docker directory.
On my Mac with MacOS 10.14.6 Mojave, running Docker version 19.03.8 that single large file can be found at:
~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/data/Docker.raw
Solution 5 - Macos
To elaborate on how to open these folders in case you are getting now directory because it is a mounted on virtual host not your Mac regular volume
screen ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/com.docker.driver.amd64-linux/tty
ls -ltrh /var/lib/docker/volumes
Answer from here
If you want to control the volume from your mac, you can map it while you are creating the container
docker run -it --name voltest2 -v /path/to_mac/directory/MyHostDir:/mydata centos:latest /bin/bash
which will map a directory mydata on your container to a directory /path/to_mac/directory/MyHostDiron your mac
Solution 6 - Macos
In my case, I want to locate the docker images and copy them to another location.
Use docker save to Save one or more images to a tar archive (streamed to STDOUT by default)
Link: https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/save/
Solution 7 - Macos
In my case (Mavericks / docker brew installed / Image name: default) is located under
/Users/<Username>/.docker/machine/machines/.
(You gotta use terminal and not finder to see it. )
ls -lah /Users/Mitsos/.docker/machine/machines/
total 0
drwx------ 3 Mitsos staff 102B Dec 8 19:03 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 Mitsos staff 170B Sep 22 13:52 ..
drwx------ 13 Mitsos staff 442B Dec 8 19:04 default
Solution 8 - Macos
On my Mac with MacOS 10.15.4 Catalina, running Docker 19.03.8 / Docker Desktop 2.3.0.2(45183) the Docker.raw is located here:
~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/Docker.raw
Solution 9 - Macos
This answer doesn't concern the "boot2Docker" version for MAC. Here I have the Version 17.12.0-ce-mac55, you have to 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 WM host
Solution 10 - Macos
In Docker Desktop version 2.2.0.4, check out the screenshot below.
Solution 11 - Macos
There's some information on this here. You can check the location by running
docker info| grep "Docker Root Dir"