Deleting ranges of Docker images using filters
If the output of docker images spans too many lines and you want to tidy it up, but you think docker system prune is like using C4 to open a can of tuna, maybe take docker images's -f flag for a spin!
docker images -f utilises the filter option and it lets you specify some extra search options to select exactly the images you’re interested in!
Filter Options
Currently Docker supports a list of filter options, but in this write-up we’re only focussing on the before and since filters - go for a full overview of the available filter options to the Docker Docs on Filtering
-f since={image id} The filter option since takes an image ID and selects all the images that are newer than the given image.
-f before={image id} Much like since, this tag selects all the images that are older than the given image id.
And to select a whole range of Docker Images, simply stick ‘em together!
Example
Enough talking; show me the money! So - imagine the output of docker images looks like the following:
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
hippo-fe latest ec8ec381807d 55 minutes ago 455MB
hippo-backend_api latest 88a08f954c9f 4 days ago 47.4MB
<none> <none> 66ee4e399b4a 4 days ago 423MB
<none> <none> 098006369e17 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> 7010975558a2 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> 75ecd4cee8ef 4 days ago 47.4MB
<none> <none> d3942b2482a2 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> 88676747d621 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> eb522755627b 4 days ago 445MB
<none> <none> d62380cf625f 5 days ago 86.3MB
<none> <none> 21bce955c85b 5 days ago 474MB
spacevim/spacevim latest a6b4bb27c4e9 2 weeks ago 1.36GB
<none> <none> abf507ccc201 2 weeks ago 106MB
<none> <none> 79a409b99ca5 2 weeks ago 530MB
<none> <none> 5fd5b5859b37 3 weeks ago 106MB
<none> <none> d93260d7abc3 3 weeks ago 530MB
node 10.16.3-alpine b95baba1cfdb 3 weeks ago 76.4MB
<none> <none> 2c62a47471d1 4 weeks ago 106MB
<none> <none> 3de57027cc18 4 weeks ago 523MB
elixir 1.9.1-alpine 33a0cf122cf7 5 weeks ago 87.6MB
<none> <none> e5196ef97445 6 weeks ago 104MB
elixir 1.8.1-alpine 447a8dff23a8 5 months ago 91.1MB
alpine 3.9 5cb3aa00f899 6 months ago 5.53MB
That’s quite the list! Let’s say we’re no longer interested in the images below the image tagged as hippo-backend_api with image id 88a08f954c9f and the images above spacevim/spacevim with image id a6b4bb27c4e9, how would we go about that using the filters described above?
$ docker images -f before=88a08f954c9f
Would give us all the images that are created before the hippo-backend_api one. Next step would be to select all the Docker images up-to a given image in history:
$ docker images -f before=88a08f954c9f -f since=a6b4bb27c4e9
Gives us all the images in a given range:
<none> <none> 66ee4e399b4a 4 days ago 423MB
<none> <none> 098006369e17 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> 7010975558a2 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> 75ecd4cee8ef 4 days ago 47.4MB
<none> <none> d3942b2482a2 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> 88676747d621 4 days ago 449MB
<none> <none> eb522755627b 4 days ago 445MB
<none> <none> d62380cf625f 5 days ago 86.3MB
<none> <none> 21bce955c85b 5 days ago 474MB
As you can see we’re now only given the images in the selected range!
Soo - all we have to do now is tag on the -q flag to solely get a list of image ID’s and pipe it into xargs to use them as arguments in the docker rmi -f command…
$ docker images -f before=a6b4bb27c4e9 -f since=88a08f954c9f -q | xargs docker rmi -f
… and voila! If we then run the docker images command again, we’ll see that the given range has been deleted:
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED SIZE
hippo-fe latest ec8ec381807d 2 hours ago 455MB
hippo-backend_api latest 88a08f954c9f 4 days ago 47.4MB
spacevim/spacevim latest a6b4bb27c4e9 2 weeks ago 1.36GB
<none> <none> abf507ccc201 2 weeks ago 106MB
<none> <none> 79a409b99ca5 2 weeks ago 530MB
<none> <none> 5fd5b5859b37 3 weeks ago 106MB
<none> <none> d93260d7abc3 3 weeks ago 530MB
node 10.16.3-alpine b95baba1cfdb 3 weeks ago 76.4MB
<none> <none> 2c62a47471d1 4 weeks ago 106MB
<none> <none> 3de57027cc18 4 weeks ago 523MB
elixir 1.9.1-alpine 33a0cf122cf7 5 weeks ago 87.6MB
<none> <none> e5196ef97445 6 weeks ago 104MB
elixir 1.8.1-alpine 447a8dff23a8 5 months ago 91.1MB
alpine 3.9 5cb3aa00f899 6 months ago 5.53MB
🙌