Where are Docker volumes located when running WSL using Docker Desktop?

You can find WSL2 volumes under a hidden network share. Open Windows Explorer, and type \\wsl$ into the location bar. Hit enter, and it should display your WSL volumes, including the ones for Docker for Windows.


If you are wondering where on the Windows host the docker volumes are located, for me they seem to be at:

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\data\ext4.vhdx

and

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Docker\wsl\distro\ext4.vhdx

presumably, these are docker-desktop-data and docker-desktop respectively.

In theory, these WSL2 instances can be re-located to an alternate drive to free disk space as per this post; that is the standard method for exporting, unregistering, and re-importing an instance from a new location. This process is also described here (with regard to standard WSL instances).

(Caveat - I haven't yet done this with the docker WSL2 instances yet myself, only for Ubuntu using the method in the second link.)


When I create a volume named shared_data in docker, I can find it under

\\\wsl$\docker-desktop-data\version-pack-data\community\docker\volumes\shared_data\\_data