Explore Containers

The Containers view lists all your running containers and applications. You must have running or stopped containers and applications to see them listed.

Container actions

Use the Search field to search for any specific container.

From the Containers view you can perform the following actions on one or more containers at once:

  • Pause/Resume
  • Stop/Start
  • Delete
  • Open the application in VS code
  • Open the port exposed by the container in a browser
  • Copy docker run. This allows you to easily share container run details or modify certain parameters

Integrated terminal

You also have the option to open an integrated terminal, on a running container, directly within Docker Desktop. This allows you to quickly run commands within your container so you can understand its current state or debug when something goes wrong.

Using the integrated terminal is the same as running docker exec -it <container-id> /bin/sh, or docker exec -it <container-id> cmd.exe if you are using Windows containers, in your external terminal. It also:

  • Automatically detects the default user for a running container from the image’s Dockerfile. If no use is specified it defaults to root.
  • Persists your session if you navigate to another part of the Docker Dashboard and then return.
  • Supports copy, paste, search, and clearing your session.

To open the integrated terminal, either:

  • Hover over your running container and select the Show container actions menu. From the dropdown menu, select Open in terminal.
  • Select the container and then select the Terminal tab.

To use your external terminal, change your settings.

Inspect a container

You can obtain detailed information about the container when you select a container.

The container view displays Logs, Inspect, Terminal, Files, and Stats tabs and provides quick action buttons to perform various actions.

  • Select Logs to see logs from the container. You can also:
    • Use Cmd + f/Ctrl + f to open the search bar and find specific entries. Search matches are highlighted in yellow.
    • Press Enter or Shift + Enter to jump to the next or previous search match respectively.
    • Use the Copy icon in the top right-hand corner to copy all the logs to your clipboard.
    • Automatically copy any logs content by highlighting a few lines or a section of the logs.
    • Use the Clear terminal icon in the top right-hand corner to clear the logs terminal.
    • Select and view external links that may be in your logs.

  • Select Inspect to view low-level information about the container. You can see the local path, version number of the image, SHA-256, port mapping, and other details.

  • Select Files to explore the filesystem of running or stopped containers. You can also:
    • See which files have been recently added, modified, or deleted
    • Edit a file straight from the built-in editor
    • Drag and drop files and folders between the host and the container
    • Delete unnecessary files when you right-click on a file
    • Download file and folders from the container straight to the host
  • Select Stats to view information about the container resource utilization. You can see the amount of CPU, disk I/O, memory, and network I/O used by the container.