docker no space left on device macOS

Increasing the space available to docker using docker preferences in macOS ultimately fixed the problem.

Docker objects accumulate over time, so with heavy usage you can eventually exhaust the available storage. You can confirm that this is the issue with docker system df:

docker system df

You can start reclaiming some space by doing a prune of your unused objects, a couple examples:

# Prune everything
docker system prune

# Only prune images
docker image prune

Be sure to read the Prune unused Docker objects documentation first to make sure you understand what you'll be discarding.

If you really can't reclaim enough space by discarding objects, then you can always allocate more disk space.

Instructions on how to increase space:

https://forums.docker.com/t/no-space-left-on-device-error/10894/26?u=adnan

Be aware that untagged images and old containers can take up loads of space.

To delete untagged images use:

docker images (to see what the extent of the issue is), then

docker rmi -f $(docker images | grep "<none>" | awk "{print \$3}")

and similarly for containers, try something like

docker rm -f $(docker ps -aq) (this will remove all containers, so be careful)

Updated 2020:

docker system prune is also a quick method of removing old containers and untagged images.