Docker No Space Left on Device — How to Fix It

What you're seeing

$ docker pull nginx
docker: write /var/lib/docker/tmp/...: no space left on device.

Variants:

• Error response from daemon: write ...: no space left on device — most common, hits during pull/build/run
• Error processing tar file: write ...: no space left on device — during image extraction
• failed to register layer: write ...: no space left on device — same thing, different step
• Error response from daemon: failed to create endpoint X on network bridge: ... no space left on device — usually inode exhaustion, not space

What's causing this error

Docker stores everything under /var/lib/docker (or ~/Library/Containers/com.docker.docker/Data on macOS / a WSL2 VHD on Windows). That directory grows by:

1. Stopped containers. Each one keeps its writable layer on disk until explicitly removed. docker rm it, the space comes back.
2. Unused images. Pulling 5 versions of node? All five sit on disk forever unless you delete them.
3. Build cache. BuildKit caches every intermediate layer of every build. On dev machines this turns into 20+ GB silently.
4. Orphan volumes. docker rm removes a container but leaves its named/anonymous volumes by default. Years of orphaned volumes = real space.
5. Container logs. Docker's default JSON log driver doesn't rotate. A noisy container can write hundreds of GB of logs.

Less common but worth knowing:

• Inode exhaustion. The disk has space but no free inodes — happens on small filesystems with many tiny files. df -i confirms.
• Docker Desktop disk-image limit (macOS/Windows). The VM has a fixed virtual disk size; you may have actual disk space free but Docker's VM doesn't.

How to fix it

Step 1: See what's actually full

df -h
docker system df

The first shows whether your filesystem is actually full or just Docker's chunk. The second shows what inside Docker is taking space:

TYPE            TOTAL     ACTIVE    SIZE      RECLAIMABLE
Images          47        12        18.2GB    12.4GB (68%)
Containers      23        4         342MB     298MB (87%)
Local Volumes   31        8         8.1GB     6.2GB (76%)
Build Cache     1023      0         14.7GB    14.7GB

The RECLAIMABLE column is what you can safely delete.

Step 2: Safe cleanup

Start with the conservative option — removes only what's definitely unused:

docker system prune

This deletes: stopped containers, dangling images (untagged), unused networks. Leaves: running containers, all tagged images, all volumes, build cache.

If that's not enough:

docker system prune -a

Same as above plus all unused images (not just dangling — anything no container is using). This is what most people actually need.

Step 3: Aggressive cleanup (when -a isn't enough)

docker system prune -a --volumes
docker builder prune -a

• --volumes also removes unused named volumes. Be careful — this is where databases live. Make sure you don't have an unused-looking volume that has data you care about.
• docker builder prune -a separately clears the build cache, which docker system prune only touches partially.

Step 4: Target a specific category

When you want surgical removal instead of a sweep:

# All stopped containers
docker container prune

# Just dangling images (untagged)
docker image prune

# All images not used by any container
docker image prune -a

# All unused volumes (no container referencing them)
docker volume prune

# Just the build cache
docker builder prune

# Older than 24h, more selective
docker builder prune --filter "until=24h"

Step 5: Fix it permanently — log rotation

The log file growth catches people by surprise. Edit /etc/docker/daemon.json:

{
  "log-driver": "json-file",
  "log-opts": {
    "max-size": "50m",
    "max-file": "3"
  }
}

Then restart docker:

sudo systemctl restart docker

New containers will rotate logs to a max of 3 × 50MB. Existing containers need to be recreated to pick up the new policy.

Step 6: Docker Desktop disk-image limit (macOS / Windows only)

If df -h shows your disk has space but Docker is full:

• macOS: Docker Desktop → Settings → Resources → Disk image size. Move the slider up.
• Windows (WSL2): same setting, or expand the WSL2 VHD: wsl --shutdown, then expand the docker-desktop-data VHD via PowerShell.

Common edge cases