Remove all Docker containers except one

Question

I have script that stops containers and then removes them

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

But I don't want to remove the docker container with name "my_docker".

How can I remove all containers except this one?

Answer 1

You can try this, which will

• Filter out the unwanted item (grep -v), and then
• returns the first column, which contains the container id

Run this command:

docker rm $(docker ps -a | grep -v "my_docker" | awk 'NR>1 {print $1}')

To use cut instead of awk, try this:

docker rm $(docker ps -a | grep -v "my_docker" | cut -d ' ' -f1)

Examples for awk/cut usage here: bash: shortest way to get n-th column of output

Answer 2

The title of the question asks for images, not containers. For those stumbling across this question looking to remove all images except one, you can use docker prune along with filter flags:

docker image prune -a --force --filter "label!=image_name"

replacing image_name with the name of your image.

You can also use the "until=" flag to prune your images by date.

Answer 3

This is what's actually happening docker rm $(List of container Ids). So it's just a matter of how you can filter the List of Container Ids.

For example: If you are looking to delete all the container but one with a specific container Id, then this docker rm $(docker ps -a -q | grep -v "my_container_id") will do the trick.

Answer 4

I achieved this by the following command:

docker image rm -f $(docker images -a | grep -v "image_repository_name" | awk 'NR>1 {print $1}')

Answer 5

For those, who want to exclude more than 1 container just add

grep -v "container_name2" | 

after the grep -v "container_name1" command. The final command might look like

docker rm $(docker ps -a | grep -v "my_docker1" | grep -v "my_docker2" | cut -d ' ' -f1)

Answer 6

I would prefer to test the container name using something along the lines of (untested)

docker inspect --format '{{ .Name }}' $(docker ps -aq)

this will give the names of the (running or not) containers, and you can filter and

docker rm

using this information

Answer 7

Deletes all the images except node image

sudo docker rmi -f $(sudo docker image ls -a | grep -v "node" | awk 'NR>1 {print $3}')

Answer 8

Using docker ps with --filter name=<my_docker>

docker rm $(docker ps -a -q | grep -v `docker ps -a -q --filter "name=my_docker"`)

Answer 9

Old question, but I like reviving posts.

For such case you could use Spotify's Docker GC: https://github.com/spotify/docker-gc#excluding-containers-from-garbage-collection

You could do:

echo "my_docker" >> /tmp/docker-gc-exclude-containers
echo '*' > /tmp/docker-gc-exclude
docker run --rm -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /etc:/etc:ro -v /tmp/docker-gc-exclude-containers:/etc/docker-gc-exclude-containers:ro -v /tmp/docker-gc-exclude:/etc/docker-gc-exclude:ro spotify/docker-gc

(if you would like to get your images cleaned off too, you can avoid mounting the docker-gc-exclude file)

Answer 10

To stop

docker stop $(docker ps -a -q | grep -v "my_container_id")

To remove

docker rm $(docker ps -a -q | grep -v "my_container_id")

Answer 11

I know its little late response but it can help any windows user. Here is the command I prepared:

docker rmi $(
docker image list -a --no-trunc --format "table {{.ID}},{{.Repository}}" | 
Where-Object { 
    $_ -NOTMATCH  "mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/aspnet" -and
    $_ -NOTMATCH  "ubuntu" -and
    $_ -NOTMATCH  "busybox" -and
    $_ -NOTMATCH  "alpine"
} | Select-Object -Skip 1 | %{ $_.Split(',')[0];} 

)

Answer 12

Maybe you can start all the containers you don't want to prune. Then, run:

docker container prune -a