`docker volume prune` doesn’t accept `--all`

[wwuck]

Description

docker volume prune does not accept the --all argument despite it appearing in the help output for the command.

Reproduce

root@docker-host:/root# docker volume prune --all --force 
unknown flag: --all

Usage:  docker [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARG...]

Run 'docker --help' for more information
root@docker-host:/root# docker volume prune --help
Usage:  docker volume prune [OPTIONS]

Remove unused local volumes

Options:
  -a, --all             Remove all unused volumes, not just anonymous ones
      --filter filter   Provide filter values (e.g. "label=<label>")
  -f, --force           Do not prompt for confirmation

Expected behavior

docker volume prune should accept --all to match the documentation.

docker version

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           29.7.1
 API version:       1.55
 Go version:        go1.26.5
 Git commit:        e9452d6
 Built:             Fri Jul 31 17:06:54 2026
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default

Server: Docker Engine - Community
 Engine:
  Version:          29.7.1
  API version:      1.55 (minimum version 1.40)
  Go version:       go1.26.5
  Git commit:       c5b8ce9
  Built:            Fri Jul 31 17:06:54 2026
  OS/Arch:          linux/amd64
  Experimental:     false
 containerd:
  Version:          v2.2.6
  GitCommit:        11ce9d5f3c68c941867e82890e93e815c1304f1b
 runc:
  Version:          1.3.6
  GitCommit:        v1.3.6-0-g491b69ba
 docker-init:
  Version:          0.19.0
  GitCommit:        de40ad0

docker info

Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:    29.7.1
 Context:    default
 Debug Mode: false
 Plugins:
  buildx: Docker Buildx (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v0.36.0
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-buildx
  compose: Docker Compose (Docker Inc.)
    Version:  v5.4.0
    Path:     /usr/libexec/docker/cli-plugins/docker-compose

Server:
 Containers: 0
  Running: 0
  Paused: 0
  Stopped: 0
 Images: 28
 Server Version: 29.7.1
 Storage Driver: overlayfs
  driver-type: io.containerd.snapshotter.v1
 Logging Driver: local
 Cgroup Driver: cgroupfs
 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: 11ce9d5f3c68c941867e82890e93e815c1304f1b
 runc version: v1.3.6-0-g491b69ba
 init version: de40ad0
 Security Options:
  apparmor
  seccomp
   Profile: builtin
  cgroupns
 Kernel Version: 6.12.96+deb13-amd64
 Operating System: Devuan GNU/Linux 6 (excalibur)
 OSType: linux
 Architecture: x86_64
 CPUs: 40
 Total Memory: 62.79GiB
 Name: docker-host
 ID: a7fd4ee6-ac8d-465a-b0ce-125feebf53a4
 Docker Root Dir: /var/lib/docker
 Debug Mode: false
 Experimental: false
 Insecure Registries:
  ::1/128
  127.0.0.0/8
 Registry Mirrors:
  https://xxxxx
 Live Restore Enabled: false
 Firewall Backend: iptables
  EnableUserlandProxy: true
  UserlandProxyPath: /bin/docker-proxy

Additional Info

No response

[thaJeztah]

Hm... interesting; not getting that error 🤔

docker volume prune --all --force
Deleted Volumes:
5051ebbfececedefcbeb2628e45adea72cca2a15433b091b377b99cb750fcab3
8b74e0a81811abbe4b9403d3006479938a1f8f91043ac1acb274cc100883d14c
a3ffaee2a88f246ae66065a01c18c0e2ac8084c5869bce9eeb194d59d721f02d
hello-volume
a9693d8ade00a0b9d565ffa1690b3fcf2e5694f1c118db34872eabbb4cf23601
docker-mod-cache
fc01bcf8101dcf5ece536d80d99f7fb3920ee3bb8fb6e1b5d121c9e9ac49cae1
04656707d9fe023bbf645a537b960727a53ad3e7e419ebfa27005614a6bd808f
35c5d1e286dbe50410d3b4385a418a65e3a008dd3d9db13c1687c76aca71de97
40df6c23bea628212556064af25fbc29f5e89b6e3da6666510a276a824b5027c
docker-dev-cache
55eec5360914e9cffeda8b73b1c1a0fa53fcd0c802c1a4bd55a7f2796081d3b3
8b66c98f72db96dbaba4349c73ff19109f5267a6e40506b692f05cdb17963418
a03b76eca332e7b87f7f42d7b9a168967f22e1fc84ac9ad498a583198ceabd32
d45fd0e076f510b0a69311e635003eeebae3383376a0ba44b77fae0a2b2e5fc6
d9ae278270fd75d27bbda777c5088e76d081e8cffa909ba7d910b2b3ccef4b05
docker-cli-dev-cache

Total reclaimed space: 6.727GB

[thaJeztah]

Can you check if you don't have some alias / wrapper in place, just to be sure?

type -a docker
command -v docker
readlink -f "$(command -v docker)"

[wwuck]

# type -a docker
docker is /usr/bin/docker
docker is /bin/docker
# command -v docker
/usr/bin/docker
# readlink -f "$(command -v docker)"
/usr/bin/docker

Hmmm now I can't reproduce it here either.

[wwuck]

I think I may have had a typo in the command name at some point in my local testing. Not sure why that has the wrong error message though.

$ docker volune prune --all --force
unknown flag: --all

Usage:  docker [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARG...]

Run 'docker --help' for more information

Surely it should report that the command is invalid, instead of the command flag?

[thaJeztah]

Oh, yes, that's a fun one; we have a ticket for that; it's .. due to some of the flag handling that has to be done before the command is evaluated. ISTR we had some patches to resolve it, but they could introduce another issue, so they weren't merged yet;

• CLI returns "unknown flag" error when you misspell a command and pass a flag #4550

[wwuck]

I think this can be closed now. Thanks for the assistance.