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Podman on a Mac runs in a virtual machine whose disk only grows

Podman's machine keeps images and containers in a disk image under your home folder. How to measure it, prune it, and reclaim space when pruning is not enough.

4 min read

On macOS, Podman runs containers inside a Linux virtual machine created with podman machine. That machine has a disk image, and like most virtual disks it grows as you pull images and build, but does not always shrink when you remove them.

podman machine ls
du -sh ~/.local/share/containers/podman/machine 2>/dev/null
podman system df

Free space inside the machine

podman system prune -a
# including volumes, after checking none hold data you need
podman system prune -a --volumes

When the disk image stays large

If podman system df is small but the disk image on your Mac is still large, the image did not give the space back. Recreating the machine returns it:

podman machine stop
podman machine rm
podman machine init --disk-size 60
podman machine start

Compare with OrbStack, Colima and Docker.

Common questions

Where does Podman store its machine disk on a Mac?

Under ~/.local/share/containers/podman/machine, in a folder for the virtualisation provider.

How do I free space in Podman on a Mac?

Run podman system prune -a. If the machine's disk image stays large, remove and recreate the machine.

Why is my Podman machine still large after pruning?

The virtual disk may not return freed space to macOS. Recreating the machine with podman machine rm and init gives a fresh, small disk.

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