Incredibly large Docker.raw file on fresh install

Docker Desktop
1

I am having an issue where a fresh Docker Desktop installs fills ~/.docker/desktop/vms/0/data/Docker.raw with an incredibly large amout of data - over 100 GB, and completely eats up all of my disk space.

Some information about my system:

  • OS: Linux Mint 22.1 x86_64
  • Version: Running docker version gives the following information:
Client: Docker Engine - Community
 Version:           28.1.1
 API version:       1.49
 Go version:        go1.23.8
 Git commit:        4eba377
 Built:             Fri Apr 18 09:52:14 2025
 OS/Arch:           linux/amd64
 Context:           default
Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

Below are the steps to reproduce, following the instructions from this page:

  • Set up Docker’s apt repository:
# Add Docker's official GPG key:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ca-certificates curl
sudo install -m 0755 -d /etc/apt/keyrings
sudo curl -fsSL https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu/gpg -o /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc
sudo chmod a+r /etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc

# Add the repository to Apt sources:
echo \
  "deb [arch=$(dpkg --print-architecture) signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/docker.asc] https://download.docker.com/linux/ubuntu \
  $(. /etc/os-release && echo "${UBUNTU_CODENAME:-$VERSION_CODENAME}") stable" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/docker.list > /dev/null
sudo apt-get update
  • Download the DEB package
  • Install the package using apt:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ./docker-desktop-amd64.deb
  • Start the installed Docker Desktop desktop entry
  • Agree to the Subscription Service

From this moment, my hard drive would start to fill up like crazy.

Running baobab reveals the culprit to be the ~/.docker directory, specifically the ~/.docker/desktop/vms/0/data/Docker.raw file.

image
image1904×1014 118 KB

The only way to stop it is to kill the com.docker.back process.

I’ved tried to uninstall and reinstall multiple times (including uninstalling any old packages) yet the issue still persists.

Is this behavior normal, or have I encountered a bug?

1 Like
2

Definitely not normal behavior and you could report it as a bug, but the distribution you are using is not supported officially. I understand that Linux Mint is baded on Ubuntu, but Ubuntu is also based on Debian and both has separate installation instructions.

If you can try Docker Desktop on any supported distribution and still experience the same issue, you could report it on GitHub, which you did

But you left out that it was installed on Linux Mint.

We also had a similar report recently

also on Linux Mint