How to list containers in Docker

Question

There's a command to list images, docker images, but there doesn't seem to be a corresponding docker containers.

Other than becoming root and looking into /var/lib/docker there doesn't seem a way to do that. Am I missing something? Is that something one isn't supposed to do?

Answer 1

To show only running containers use the given command:

docker ps 

To show all containers use the given command:

docker ps -a 

To show the latest created container (includes all states) use the given command:

docker ps -l 

To show n last created containers (includes all states) use the given command:

docker ps -n=-1 

To display total file sizes use the given command:

docker ps -s 

The content presented above is from docker.com.

In the new version of Docker, commands are updated, and some management commands are added:

docker container ls 

It is used to list all the running containers.

docker container ls -a 

And then, if you want to clean them all,

docker rm $(docker ps -aq) 

It is used to list all the containers created irrespective of its state.

And to stop all the Docker containers (force)

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

Here the container is the management command.

Answer 2

To list all running and stopped containers

docker ps -a 

To list all running containers (just stating the obvious and also example use of -f filtering option)

docker ps -a -f status=running 

To list all running and stopped containers, showing only their container id

docker ps -aq 

To remove all containers that are NOT running

docker rm `docker ps -aq -f status=exited`