Why does docker inspect show a Mountpoint which is different from where my volume directory actually resides on the host?

General
1

I am running Docker on a Windows host. I have a volume named “multi-container_counter-vol”. When I run docker inspect multi-container_counter-vol I get the following output,

[
    {
        "CreatedAt": "2025-10-28T13:24:01Z",
        "Driver": "local",
        "Labels": {
            "com.docker.compose.project": "multi-container",
            "com.docker.compose.version": "2.29.2",
            "com.docker.compose.volume": "counter-vol"
        },
        "Mountpoint": "/var/lib/docker/volumes/multi-container_counter-vol/_data",
        "Name": "multi-container_counter-vol",
        "Options": null,
        "Scope": "local"
    }
]

Note the “Mountpoint” kv pair with value "/var/lib/docker/volumes/multi-container_counter-vol/_data"

I cannot cd into that location cause it DOES NOT exists. It is actually at \\wsl$\docker-desktop\mnt\docker-desktop-disk\data\docker\volumes\multi-container_counter-vol

I cannot wrap my head around why does it say a different location when I use the inspect command which I cannot cd into.

Image from my Powershell with my docker version for additional info,

image
image1454×1074 63.4 KB

2

Docker was originally developed as a Linux tool. Docker Desktop runs a Linux-VM to run Docker inside, so the path you see is inside the VM.

3

This is not true. What is true is that it does not exist where you expect it to exists.

The volume is a managed directory inside a container (not a docker container though) inside the utility vm that runs the docker engine. From the perspective of the container inside the utility vm the path exists and is correct.

You can enter this container inside the utility vm and cd to the volume path you see from the inspect output:

docker run -it --rm --privileged --pid=host justincormack/nsenter1

Though, why do you even want to access it? Accessing the path that stores the volume data is usually a sign that you try to do something that is not supposed to be done like this. Unless you are an expert and know exactly what you are doing, I do not recommend touching anything in that folder, as it could break permissions of files or corrupt files required by a container.