Docker: Change Location of Image Directory

Your default docker image directory is in /var/lib/docker. And the partition of that directory may be full. And you need to move it to the new created disk partition.

Here is the step by step instruction:

1. Edit /etc/docker/daemon.json (if it doesn’t exist, create it)

{
  "data-root": "/new/path/to/docker-data"
}

2. Stop docker daemon:

sudo systemctl stop docker

3. Copy everything from /var/lib/docker to new location

sudo rsync -axPS /var/lib/docker/ /new/path/to/docker-data

4. Start docker daemon:

sudo systemctl start docker

5. Verify your docker daemon is using the new location

sudo docker info | grep 'Docker Root Dir'

6 Check your docker is running

sudo systemctl status docker
docker ps

7. If everything is OK, you may remove /var/lib/docker

sudo rm -r /var/lib/docker