See these pages for more information:
https://docs.docker.com/reference/cli/docker/container/ls/

For the following sections we will use the nginx and ubuntu images as examples to show how to use docker commands to list containers.

Let's run the nginx image:
$ docker run -d nginx:1.19.1 02404a9bc24bc3f7222035a9b7eaa698557bb53f660222858c7f590556762730
Let's run the ubuntu image:
$ docker run -d ubuntu:20.04 318bb50490ab5ebf49f633f36f14ca3e65c343bad8c87fb189e968ab6e038bea

The 'docker ps' command has the following syntax:
$ docker ps [OPTIONS]
The 'docker ps' command has the following options:
-a, --all Show all containers (default shows just running) -n, --last int Show n last created containers (includes all states) (default -1) -l, --latest Show the latest created container (includes all states) --no-trunc Don't truncate output -q, --quiet Only display numeric IDs -s, --size Display total file sizes -f, --filter filter Filter output based on conditions provided --format string Pretty-print containers using a Go template
Let's verify if the containers are up and running:
$ docker ps CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 5521be4273f6 nginx:1.19.1 "/docker-entrypoint.…" 4 seconds ago Up 3 seconds 80/tcp competent_sutherland
Note that the ubuntu container doesn't appear when listing the running containers. It was started and exited immediately, because it doesn't have a process that run in the foreground.

The 'docker ps' command lists only running containers. To list all containers including stopped (or paused, failed, ...), use the option '-a' ('--all'):
$ docker ps -a CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 5521be4273f6 nginx:1.19.1 "/docker-entrypoint.…" 9 seconds ago Up 9 seconds 80/tcp competent_sutherland 318bb50490ab ubuntu:20.04 "/bin/bash" 5 seconds ago Exited (0) 5 seconds ago sleepy_brahmagupta

To print the size of the container, use the option '-s' ('--size'):
$ docker ps -s CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES SIZE 5521be4273f6 nginx:1.19.1 "/docker-entrypoint.…" 5 minutes ago Up 5 minutes 80/tcp competent_sutherland 1.12kB (virtual 132MB)

To print the full container ID and the whole command, use the option '--no-trunc':
$ docker ps --no-trunc CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 5521be4273f697db94a7d74fdc9c31350687a60a3c9d2a91ce52b0d6d4167791 nginx:1.19.1 "/docker-entrypoint.sh nginx -g 'daemon off;'" 37 minutes ago Up 37 minutes 80/tcp competent_sutherland

To print only the container ID, use the option '-q' ('--quiet'):
$ docker ps -q 5521be4273f6
The option '-q' can be useful for example in case you want to write scripts to do some actions on the containers.

For example, if you want to stop all running container: $ docker stop `docker ps -q --no-trunc` 5521be4273f697db94a7d74fdc9c31350687a60a3c9d2a91ce52b0d6d4167791
To remove all containers: $ docker rm `docker ps -q -a --no-trunc` 5521be4273f697db94a7d74fdc9c31350687a60a3c9d2a91ce52b0d6d4167791 318bb50490ab5ebf49f633f36f14ca3e65c343bad8c87fb189e968ab6e038bea

To format the output of the command, use the option '--format'.
You can use either json or GO template to format the output.

First let's find out the available data that we can format (the trick is to print the output of the 'docker ps' command as json):
$ docker ps --format "{{json .}}" | jq { "Command": "\"/docker-entrypoint.…\"", "CreatedAt": "12:11:11 -0400 EDT", "ID": "77a6ba66f660", "Image": "nginx:1.19.1", "Labels": "maintainer=NGINX Docker Maintainers <docker-maint@nginx.com>", "LocalVolumes": "0", "Mounts": "", "Names": "heuristic_black", "Networks": "bridge", "Ports": "80/tcp", "RunningFor": "10 minutes ago", "Size": "0B", "Status": "Up 10 minutes" }
To print only the container ID and the image name:
$ docker ps -a --format "{{.ID}}\t{{.Image}}" "43da9abf5541" "ubuntu:20.04" "77a6ba66f660" "nginx:1.19.1"
To print the container ID and the image name in a table format:
$ docker ps -a --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Image}}" CONTAINER ID IMAGE 43da9abf5541 ubuntu:20.04 77a6ba66f660 nginx:1.19.1

To filter the output based on some conditions, use the option '-f' ('--filter'):
$ docker ps -a --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Image}}" -f "id=77a6ba66f660" CONTAINER ID IMAGE 77a6ba66f660 nginx:1.19.1

The 'docker container ls' command has the following syntax:
$ docker container ls [OPTIONS]
Note that the following commands are equivalent: docker container ls, docker container list, docker container ps, docker ps

The 'docker container ls' command has the following options:
-a, --all Show all containers (default shows just running) -n, --last int Show n last created containers (includes all states) (default -1) -l, --latest Show the latest created container (includes all states) --no-trunc Don't truncate output -q, --quiet Only display container IDs -s, --size Display total file sizes -f, --filter filter Filter output based on conditions provided --format string Format output using a custom template: 'table': Print output in table format with column headers (default) 'table TEMPLATE': Print output in table format using the given Go template 'json': Print in JSON format 'TEMPLATE': Print output using the given Go template. Refer to https://docs.docker.com/go/formatting/ for more information about formatting output with templates
For details how to to use 'docker container ls' options, see "docker ps" options usage above.

Let's verify that nginx is up and running:
$ docker container ls CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES 5521be4273f6 nginx:1.19.1 "/docker-entrypoint.…" 4 seconds ago Up 3 seconds 80/tcp competent_sutherland
To format the output using json:
$ docker container ls --format json | jq { "Command": "\"/docker-entrypoint.…\"", "CreatedAt": "2025-05-19 14:29:17 -0400 EDT", "ID": "c23c57e84e2d", "Image": "nginx-expose:latest", "Labels": "maintainer=NGINX Docker Maintainers <docker-maint@nginx.com>,desktop.docker.io/wsl-distro=Ubuntu-24.04", "LocalVolumes": "0", "Mounts": "", "Names": "eager_sammet", "Networks": "bridge", "Ports": "80/udp, 0.0.0.0:8080->80/tcp", "RunningFor": "About an hour ago", "Size": "0B", "State": "running", "Status": "Up About an hour" }
We can use the Go template to format the output:
$ docker container ls --format "table {{.ID}}\t{{.Image}}\t{{.State}}\t{{.Status}}" CONTAINER ID IMAGE STATE STATUS c23c57e84e2d nginx-expose:latest running Up About an hour
To list only the container ID:
$ docker container ls --quiet c23c57e84e2d