docs/reference/commandline/image_save.md

# save

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Save one or more images to a tar archive (streamed to STDOUT by default)

### Aliases

`docker image save`, `docker save`

### Options

| Name             | Type     | Default | Description                        |
|:-----------------|:---------|:--------|:-----------------------------------|
| `-o`, `--output` | `string` |         | Write to a file, instead of STDOUT |


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## Description

Produces a tarred repository to the standard output stream.
Contains all parent layers, and all tags + versions, or specified `repo:tag`, for
each argument provided.

## Examples

### Create a backup that can then be used with `docker load`.

```console
$ docker save busybox > busybox.tar

$ ls -sh busybox.tar

2.7M busybox.tar

$ docker save --output busybox.tar busybox

$ ls -sh busybox.tar

2.7M busybox.tar

$ docker save -o fedora-all.tar fedora

$ docker save -o fedora-latest.tar fedora:latest
```

### Save an image to a tar.gz file using gzip

You can use gzip to save the image file and make the backup smaller.

```console
$ docker save myimage:latest | gzip > myimage_latest.tar.gz
```

### Cherry-pick particular tags

You can even cherry-pick particular tags of an image repository.

```console
$ docker save -o ubuntu.tar ubuntu:lucid ubuntu:saucy
```