How to Remove a Docker Container

In Docker, you can remove a container using the docker rm command. This command deletes the specified container from your system.

The following example shows how to remove a Docker container.

How to Remove a Stopped Docker Container

To remove a stopped Docker container, we can use the docker rm command followed by the container ID or name.

we can use the docker ps -a command to get the list of all Docker containers (both running and stopped). It returns the container ID, name, command, and other details.

w ecan use either the container ID or name to retrieve the container’s IP address.

Suppose we want to remove a container app-nginx, we can run the following command in the terminal:

docker rm app-nginx

Output: 👇️

In this example, the docker rm command removes the container named app-nginx

How to Remove a Running Docker Container

To remove a running Docker container, we need to stop it first using the docker stop command and then remove it using the docker rm command.

Suppose we want to remove a running container named app-nginx, we can use the following commands in the terminal:

docker stop app-nginx
docker rm app-nginx

Output: 👇️

app-nginx
app-nginx

In this example, the docker stop command stops the container and the docker rm command removes it.

If we try to delete a running container, it will throw an exception as given below

Error response from daemon: cannot remove container "/app-nginx": container is running: stop the container before removing or force remove

How to Force Remove a Docker Container

To force remove a running Docker container without stopping it first, we can use the -f flag with the docker rm command.

Suppose we want to force remove a container named app-nginx, we can run the following command in the terminal:

docker rm -f app-nginx

Output: 👇️

app-nginx

In this example, the docker rm -f command forcefully removes the container named app-nginx.

Conclusion

We can remove Docker containers using the docker rm command.

This allows us to clean up and manage our Docker environment by deleting no longer-needed containers.

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