How to Export & Import Docker Image

We can always pull docker images from docker registry. But, sometimes we need to share our images manually. In this post, I will share you how to import and export docker images.

Export Docker Image

Let say we have these two docker images in my local docker

$ docker images
REPOSITORY    TAG       IMAGE ID       CREATED         SIZE
mysql         5.7       547b3c3c15a9   4 weeks ago     501MB
postgres      12        d480c196f9b0   3 months ago    405MB

We want to export postgres docker image. To do that, we can do that using docker export command like this :

$ docker export postgres > postgres.tar

Here are the explanation for this command. In general the command is like this :

$ docker export <image-name> > <output-name>.tar

• change <image-name> with the image that you want to export
• change <output-name> in to the output name you intended. The output file will be on .tar format.

Import Docker Image

Let say you want to import / load the exported docker image file (the .tar file). You can use docker load command like this :

$ docker load -i postgres.tar

In general, the command is like this :

$ docker load -i <tar-file>.tar

If the import / load is successful, you will see the image if you run docker images command.

That’s all, very simple :)

External sources :

• docker export
• docker load