Umbrel System disk space usage grows high (fix)

Support and Troubleshooting
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If you running out of disk space on your Umbrel device and when looking at usage it is the “System” entry that is using up all the space, and users on the internet keep telling you it is your bitcoin node when you know it is not, here is the fix.

In short, Umbrel uses docker to deploy apps. Docker can utilize a TON of space over time from logs, builds and updates. You need to periodically prune the docker area.

Standard warning that you should have backups somewhere in case data gets deleted. This command removes all stopped containers, all networks not used by at least one container, all dangling images, and all build cache. You will be prompted to confirm.

  1. Log in to your Umbrel terminal in the advanced settings.

  2. Run the ‘‘‘sudo docker system prune -a’’’ command. You need sudo and the password in order to access that subfolder.

Reboot your Umbrel just to get back to a clean start after that so that any services that had stopped will restart again.

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Here is one that use fairly often as well (with all of Docker Stopped):

Clear all Docker Container Logs

sudo find /var/lib/docker/containers/ -type f -name “*.log” -delete

Humm … with all of Docker stopped may confuse some … here is my full script which also clears out System Logs at the end:

#!/bin/bash

Stop Umbrel services gracefully first

sudo systemctl stop umbrel.service
sudo systemctl stop docker.service

Stop the Docker service

sudo systemctl stop docker.service
sleep 2

Stop the Docker socket

sudo systemctl stop docker.socket
sleep 2

Clear all Docker Container Logs

sudo find /var/lib/docker/containers/ -type f -name “*.log” -delete

Recycle systemd-journald

sudo systemctl stop systemd-journald
sleep 2
sudo systemctl start systemd-journald
sleep 2

Reset and Clear-out System Logs

sudo journalctl --rotate
sudo journalctl --vacuum-time=1s

You should also look at what Docker Images you have loaded … I have seem some where multiple versions are being kept for no reason:

sudo docker images

You clean them with the command:

Make sure you know what you are doing when you use this:

sudo docker rmi <Image_ID>