You cannot remove a running container Docker Origin: Platform & cloud Last updated 13 Oct 2026

Error response from daemon: You cannot remove a running container. Stop the container before attempting removal or force remove

docker rm refuses to delete a container that is still running.

Exact message you may see You cannot remove a running containerStop the container before attempting removal or force removecannot remove container
Seen on: Docker

Meaning

Stop it first, or use docker rm -f to stop and remove in one step. For Compose projects, docker compose down stops and removes everything.

Common causes

  • Container still running
  • Restart policy brought it back up after stop

⚡ Quick fix

  1. docker stop c && docker rm c
  2. docker rm -f c
  3. docker compose down for Compose projects

Detailed fix by platform

Docker

  1. bash
    docker rm -f web
    docker compose down

How to diagnose

  1. State — docker ps | grep web
  2. Restart policy — docker inspect -f '{{.HostConfig.RestartPolicy.Name}}' web

🔧 Still not fixed?

Many errors look alike. If the steps above didn’t solve it, one of these is probably what you’re facing:

Where this error sits

Origin: Platform & cloud. Errors that are often confused with or caused by this one (click to open):

ACR unauthorized — Azure Container Registry: unauthorized: authentication required, visit https://aka.ms/acr/authorization (AKS ErrImagePull 401) (Azure)ACR unauthorizedCannotPullContainerError — ECS task stopped: CannotPullContainerError: pull image manifest has been retried ... / ref pull has been retried (AWS)CannotPullContainerEr…client version is too new — Error response from daemon: client version 1.45 is too new. Maximum supported API version is 1.41 (Docker)client version is too…Conflict container name — Conflict. The container name "/x" is already in use by container … (Docker)Conflict container na…Container failed to start — Cloud Run: The user-provided container failed to start and listen on the port defined provided by the PORT=8080 environment variable (Google Cloud / Firebase)Container failed to s…could not select device driver — could not select device driver "" with capabilities: [[gpu]] (Docker)could not select devi…docker-compose: command not found — docker-compose: command not found / 'compose' is not a docker command (Docker)docker-compose: comma…EROFS — npm ERR! code EROFS — EROFS: read-only file system (npm)EROFSYou canno…

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