docker logs · Knowledge & Memory Center

Read and follow logs

SHELL

1docker logs <container>

2docker logs -f <container> # follow, like tail -f

3docker logs --tail 100 <container>

4docker logs --since 1h <container>

Flag reference

SHELL

1-f # follow new output (like tail -f)

2--tail 100 # only the last 100 lines

3--since 10m # since a duration or timestamp

4--until 2026-01-01T12:00:00

5-t # prefix each line with a timestamp

Examples

SHELL

1# Last 100 lines and keep following

2docker logs -f --tail 100 <container>

3

4# Last 15 minutes, with timestamps

5docker logs -t --since 15m <container>

6

7# Search the logs (stderr included)

8docker logs <container> 2>&1 | grep -i error

9

10# Compose: all services, or one

11docker compose logs -f

12docker compose logs -f api

Only shows what the app writes to stdout/stderr. Apps that log to files inside the container show nothing here
Logs survive a stop but are deleted with docker rm
The default json-file driver grows without limit: set rotation in /etc/docker/daemon.json

daemon.json log rotation

JSON

1{

2 "log-driver": "json-file",

3 "log-opts": { "max-size": "10m", "max-file": "3" }

4}

!

Restart the Docker daemon after changing daemon.json; rotation only applies to newly created containers.