By default, if you run docker images you will get the size of each image. However, if you run docker ps you would not get the size of the running containers.
To check the size of each running container what you could do is just use the --size argument of docker ps command.
You would get the following output:
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES SIZE
d64a8112d00a nginx "nginx -g 'daemon of…" About an hour ago Up About an hour 0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp nginx 12MB (virtual 127MB)
ab81be326c31 eboraas/laravel "/usr/sbin/apache2ct…" 2 hours ago Up 2 hours 80/tcp, 443/tcp laravel 92MB (virtual 509MB)
That way you will be able to quickly tell which container exactly is consuming the most disk space.
In case that you need to clear some space, I would recommend checking out this tutorial here on how to remove Docker Images, Containers and Volumes:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-remove-docker-images-containers-and-volumes
Hope that this helps!
by Melissa Anderson
Docker doesn't provide direct cleanup commands, but it does give you all the tools you need to clean up your system from the command line. This cheat sheet-style guide provides a quick reference to commands that are useful for freeing disk space and keeping your system organized by removing unused Docker images, containers, and volumes.
