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Docker cleanup commands to free up disk space on a VPS

Quick Docker commands I use to reclaim disk space on my VPS by removing unused images, containers, and build cache while keeping project volumes intact.

Docker can quietly consume gigabytes of storage over time. When my VPS starts running low on disk space, I use these two commands…

The first command removes unused Docker build cache:

docker builder prune -a -f

The second removes unused images, stopped containers, networks, and other Docker resources:

docker system prune -a -f

Importantly, these commands do not remove Docker volumes, so project data and databases remain safe.

To see how much space Docker is using before and after cleanup:

docker system df

I run this cleanup periodically on my VPS to keep storage usage under control.