---
title: "save"
description: "The save command description and usage"
keywords: ["tarred, repository, backup"]
---

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# save

```markdown
Usage:  docker save [OPTIONS] IMAGE [IMAGE...]

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

Options:
      --help            Print usage
  -o, --output string   Write to a file, instead of STDOUT
```

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.

It is used to create a backup that can then be used with `docker load`

    $ 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

It is even useful to cherry-pick particular tags of an image repository

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