How to Free Up Docker Disk Space on Mac

Docker Desktop on macOS stores everything inside a large virtual disk image — typically at ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data/vms/0/data/Docker.raw. This file can grow to 60 GB or more and almost never shrinks automatically, even when you delete containers and images inside Docker.

The four main culprits:

• Dangling images — untagged layers left behind after rebuilds (<none>:<none>)
• Build cache — BuildKit caches every intermediate layer, which accumulates rapidly across projects
• Stopped containers — containers you ran once for testing and never removed
• Unused volumes — named volumes attached to containers that no longer exist

Open Terminal and run:

docker system df

This shows a table with images, containers, local volumes, and build cache — including reclaimable sizes. Typical output on an active development machine shows 5–30 GB reclaimable.

Dangling images are untagged layers left over from rebuilds. They are always safe to delete:

docker image prune

To also remove all images not currently used by any container (including older versions of your own images):

# WARNING: removes all unused images, not just dangling ones
docker image prune -a

List all containers including stopped ones:

docker ps -a

Remove all stopped containers:

docker container prune

Build cache is the biggest single source of reclaimed space. On active CI/CD setups it can exceed 20 GB:

docker builder prune

To remove all build cache without confirmation prompt:

docker builder prune --all --force

Named volumes not attached to any running container are safe to prune. First, list them:

docker volume ls

docker volume prune

To do everything above in one command:

docker system prune -a --volumes

⚠️ This removes ALL unused images, containers, volumes, and build cache. Running containers and their images are safe, but you will need to re-pull images the next time you run stopped projects.

SpaceWise's Docker Deep Cleaner connects to the local Docker Engine socket and categorises everything into safe vs. potentially-needed — without any Terminal commands. It shows dangling images, stopped containers, stale BuildKit layers, and unused volumes, letting you select exactly what to clean before confirming.

Unlike docker system prune -a, SpaceWise never removes base images referenced by active compose stacks or running containers, so it's safe to run on production-adjacent development machines.