docker / docker/cli

The new `docker images' output format is pretty unusable

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#6,650 25 comments 47 reactions 1 assignee View on GitHub

@vvoland is already working on this.

Since Nov 24, 2025.

area/ux kind/bug
Dominant language
Go
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Description

Description

First of all: there's lots of legacy code relying on the old output. Hence changing this in such a way really a bad idea - even though having told pretty much everybody that for parsable output --format should be used. There real old code out there.

But even worse: the new output format truncates image names so that grepping for image names always requires --no-trunc which is really inconvenient.

Reproduce

docker images
Output: lots of truncated image names that aren't readable.

Expected behavior

docker images should default to output that is useful for most cases.

docker version
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           29.0.0
 API version:       1.52
 Go version:        go1.25.4
 Git commit:        3d4129b
 Built:             Mon Nov 10 21:49:15 2025
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          29.0.0
  API version:      1.52 (minimum version 1.44)
  Go version:       go1.25.4
  Git commit:       d105562
  Built:            Mon Nov 10 21:45:58 2025
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          v2.1.5
  GitCommit:        fcd43222d6b07379a4be9786bda52438f0dd16a1
 runc:
  Version:          1.3.3
  GitCommit:        v1.3.3-0-gd842d771
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0
docker info
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:    29.0.0
 Context:    default
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.29.1
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v2.40.3
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Server:
 Containers: 3
  Running: 0
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 3
 Images: 274
 Server Version: 29.0.0
 Storage Driver: overlay2
  Backing Filesystem: btrfs
  Supports d_type: true
  Using metacopy: false
  Native Overlay Diff: true
  userxattr: false
 Logging Driver: json-file
 Cgroup Driver: systemd
 Cgroup Version: 2
 Plugins:
  Volume: local
  Network: bridge host ipvlan macvlan null overlay
  Log: awslogs fluentd gcplogs gelf journald json-file local splunk syslog
 CDI spec directories:
  /etc/cdi
  /var/run/cdi
 Swarm: inactive
 Runtimes: io.containerd.runc.v2 runc
 Default Runtime: runc
 Init Binary: docker-init
 containerd version: fcd43222d6b07379a4be9786bda52438f0dd16a1
 runc version: v1.3.3-0-gd842d771
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  seccomp
   Profile: builtin
  cgroupns
 Kernel Version: 6.17.7-300.fc43.x86_64
 Operating System: Fedora Linux 43 (Workstation Edition)
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: x86_64
 CPUs: 32
 Total Memory: 125.4GiB
 Name: ...
 ID: 8609766b-6859-4c6d-b799-973d7216c328
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 Username: mdietze
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
...
  ::1/128
  127.0.0.0/8
 Registry Mirrors:
  https://mirror.gcr.io/
 Live Restore Enabled: false
 Firewall Backend: iptables+firewalld
Additional Info

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