Export/Import Docker Container Image to File

Photo by Ian Taylor on Unsplash

Generally, the container image is used by pulling the one pushed to the container registry . There is also a method of exchanging container images as files without going through the above registry.

Export the container image to a file

You can export it to a tar file with a command.

root@vagrant:/home/vagrant# docker pull spy86/sonarqube:latest
latest: Pulling from spy86/sonarqube
d960726af2be: Pull complete
e8d62473a22d: Pull complete
8962bc0fad55: Pull complete
65d943ee54c1: Pull complete
da20b77f10ac: Pull complete
fb6a778e6477: Pull complete
ae7884f0e61b: Pull complete
5d6c92be81fd: Pull complete
f5c36a6a2e0b: Pull complete
f8d500468a7d: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:6186a5d978653c08c7e7dd6e44da5e72e7dbe9ab0854c0d8241e0b5382c7b667
Status: Downloaded newer image for spy86/sonarqube:latest
docker.io/spy86/sonarqube:latest
root@vagrant:/home/vagrant# docker images
REPOSITORY        TAG       IMAGE ID       CREATED       SIZE
spy86/sonarqube   latest    3d292a51eff7   8 weeks ago   763MB
root@vagrant:/home/vagrant# docker save spy86/sonarqube:latest > sonarqube.tar
root@vagrant:/home/vagrant# ls -laht | grep sonarqube
-rw-r--r-- 1 root    root    741M Jul 20 17:54 sonarqube.tar

Import container image from file