You have installed multiple Docker images and would like to clean them up using rmi command. So, you list all the images as:

~> docker images --no-trunc
REPOSITORY TAG IMAGE ID CREATED VIRTUAL SIZE
mysql latest 98840bbb442c7dc3640ffe3a8ec45d3fee934c2f6d85daaaa2edf65b380485a0 25 hours ago 236 MB
wildfly-centos latest fc378232f03d04bff96987f4c23969461582f73c3a7b473a7cb823ac67939f48 5 days ago 619.6 MB
arungupta/wildfly-centos latest e4f1dbdff18956621aa48a83e5b05df309ee002c3668fa452f1235465d881020 6 days ago 619.6 MB
wildfly-ubuntu latest a2e96e76eb10f4df87d01965ce4df5310de6f9f3927aceb7f5642393050e8752 7 days ago 749.5 MB
registry latest 7e2db37c6564bf030e6c5af9725bf9f9a8196846e3a77a51e201fc97871e2e60 2 weeks ago 411.6 MB
centos latest ae0c2d0bdc100993f7093400f96e9abab6ddd9a7c56b0ceba47685df5a8fe906 4 weeks ago 224 MB
jboss/wildfly latest 365390553f925f96f8c00f79525ad101847de7781bb4fec23b1188f25fe99a6a 5 weeks ago 948.7 MB
centos/wildfly latest 1de9304f58bbc2d401b4dcbba6fc686bdd6f6bff473fe486e7cb905c02163b1a 6 weeks ago 606.6 MB

Then try to remove the “arungupta/wildfly-centos” image as shown below, but get an error:

~> docker rmi e4f1dbdff18956621aa48a83e5b05df309ee002c3668fa452f1235465d881020
Error response from daemon: Conflict, cannot delete e4f1dbdff189 because the container bafc2b3327a4 is using it, use -f to force
2014/12/02 12:56:53 Error: failed to remove one or more images
 

So you follow the recommendation of using -f switch but get another error:

~> docker rmi -f e4f1dbdff18956621aa48a83e5b05df309ee002c3668fa452f1235465d881020
Error response from daemon: No such id: c345720579e024df4f6d28d2062fda64b7743f7dbb214136d4d2285bc3afc95b
2014/12/02 12:56:55 Error: failed to remove one or more images

What do you do ?

This message indicates that the image is used by one of the containers and that’s why could not be removed. The error message is very ambiguous and a #9458 has been filed for the same.

In the meanwhile, an easy way to solve this is to list all the containers as shown:

CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
bafc2b3327a4 arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 4 days ago boring_ptolemy 
bfe71d92a612 arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 4 days ago agitated_einstein 
e1c0965d202c arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 4 days ago thirsty_blackwell 
ddc400c26f1a mysql:latest "/entrypoint.sh mysq 5 days ago Exited (0) 27 minutes ago 3306/tcp sample-mysql 
05c741b5e22f wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago Exited (130) 5 days ago agitated_lalande 
ff10b83d6c17 arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago insane_wilson 
b2774b17460c arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago goofy_pasteur 
2d64f4eb8fb9 arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago focused_lalande 
c3f61947671a arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago silly_ardinghelli 
ac6f29b92c7a arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago stoic_leakey 
fc16f3f8c139 wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago desperate_babbage 
4555628a5d0a wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago Exited (-1) 4 days ago sharp_bardeen 
3bdae1d2527a wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago Exited (130) 5 days ago sick_lovelace 
2697c769c2ee wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago thirsty_fermat 
f8c686d1d6be wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago Exited (130) 5 days ago cranky_fermat 
a1945f2ca473 wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago Exited (-1) 4 days ago suspicious_turing 
31b9c4df0633 arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 5 days ago distracted_franklin 
cd8dad2b1e22 c345720579e0 "/bin/sh -c '#(nop) 5 days ago cocky_blackwell 

There are lots of containers that are using “arungupta/wildfly-centos” image but none of them seem to be running. If there are any containers that are running then you need to stop them as:

docker rm $(docker stop $(docker ps -q))

Remove the containers that are using this image as:

docker ps -a | grep arungupta/wildfly-centos | awk '{print $1}' | xargs docker rm
bafc2b3327a4
bfe71d92a612
e1c0965d202c
ff10b83d6c17
b2774b17460c
2d64f4eb8fb9
ac6f29b92c7a
31b9c4df0633

The criteria here is specified as a grep pattern.

docker ps command has other options to specify criteria as well such as only the latest created containers or containers in a particular status. For example, containers that exited with status -1 can be seen as:

~> docker ps -a -f "exited=-1"
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
68aca76aa690 wildfly-centos:latest "/opt/jboss/wildfly/ 39 minutes ago Exited (-1) 37 minutes ago insane_yonath

All running containers, as opposed to meeting a specific criteria, can be removed as:

docker rm $(docker ps -aq)

And now the image can be easily removed as:

~> docker rmi e4f1dbdff189
Untagged: arungupta/wildfly-centos:latest
Deleted: e4f1dbdff18956621aa48a83e5b05df309ee002c3668fa452f1235465d881020
Deleted: ad2899e176a2e73acbcf61909426786eaa195fcea7fb0aa27061431a3aae6633

Just like removing all containers, all images can be removed as:

docker rmi $(docker images -q)

Enjoy!