Where Are Docker Hub Images Stored in Docker for Mac?

angryelephant

This discussion will focus on the location of images pulled from Docker Hub using Docker for Mac. We will discuss the default location for images, as well as how to change the default location. We will also discuss the pros and cons of using different locations for your images. Finally, we will discuss any other related topics, such as tips and tricks for managing images.

albert_fitzpatrick

The location of images pulled from Docker Hub via Docker for Mac would depend on the version of Docker you are using. For Mac and Windows users who are using the Docker Desktop version, the images are pulled down to the disk location of
<home-directory>/.docker/<os>/<version>/

The <home-directory> is most likely the root of your user profile, for example for a user name of john, it would be C:\Users\John.docker

On Linux, the images will be stored at /var/lib/docker/<os>/<version>/

If you want to find where exactly your images are stored, you can check the settings in the Docker application. Go to preferences > Reset to factory defaults then select "Expose daemon on tcp://localhost:2375 without TLS" and press Apply & Restart. Then open command prompt and type

docker info

This will return a lot of information to the command line including information about the storage driver.

For further reading, you can refer to the Docker documentation page about storage drivers:
https://docs.docker.com/storage/storagedriver/select-storage-driver/

Silvio734

When you download and install Docker for Mac, all images pulled from Docker Hub are stored in the following location: "/var/lib/docker/image/aufs/imagedb/content/sha256". The "sha256" folder contains all of the images, named after their respective sha256 hashes. Once you have a container image built and stored, you can pull it down from Docker Hub and it will be accessible in the above mentioned directory. If you want to check what images are available on your local machine, you can use the docker images command.