apptainer-pull - Man Page

• Pull a container from Docker Hub: apptainer pull path/to/image.sif docker://image:tag
• Pull a container from the Container Library: apptainer pull path/to/image.sif library://user/collection/container:tag
• Pull a container from an OCI registry: apptainer pull path/to/image.sif oras://registry/namespace/image:tag
• Pull a container for a specific architecture: apptainer pull --arch amd64|arm64|ppc64le path/to/image.sif library://image:tag
• Force overwrite an existing image file: apptainer pull [-F|--force] path/to/image.sif docker://image:tag
• Pull a container as a writable sandbox directory: apptainer pull --sandbox path/to/directory docker://image:tag
• Pull a container without using the cache: apptainer pull --disable-cache path/to/image.sif docker://image:tag
• Display help: apptainer pull [-h|--help]

tldr.sh

apptainer pull [pull options...] [output file]

The 'pull' command allows you to download or build a container from a given
 URI. Supported URIs include:

library: Pull an image from the currently configured library
     library://user/collection/container[:tag]

docker: Pull a Docker/OCI image from Docker Hub, or another OCI registry.
     docker://user/image:tag

shub: Pull an image from Singularity Hub
     shub://user/image:tag

oras: Pull a SIF image from an OCI registry that supports ORAS.
     oras://registry/namespace/image:tag

http, https: Pull an image using the http(s?) protocol
     https://example.com/alpine.sif

--arch="amd64" architecture to pull from library

--arch-variant="" architecture variant to pull from library

--authfile="" Docker-style authentication file to use for writing/reading OCI registry credentials

--dir="" download images to the specific directory

--disable-cache[=false] do not use or create cached images/blobs

--docker-host="" specify a custom Docker daemon host

--docker-login[=false] login to a Docker Repository interactively

-F, --force[=false] overwrite an image file if it exists

-h, --help[=false] help for pull

--library="" download images from the provided library

--no-cleanup[=false] do NOT clean up bundle after failed build, can be helpful for debugging

--no-https[=false] use http instead of https for docker:// oras:// and library:///... URIs

--sandbox[=false] pull image as sandbox format (chroot directory structure)

  From a library
  $ apptainer pull alpine.sif library://alpine:latest

  From Docker
  $ apptainer pull tensorflow.sif docker://tensorflow/tensorflow:latest
  $ apptainer pull --arch arm --arch-variant 6 alpine.sif docker://alpine:latest

  From Shub
  $ apptainer pull apptainer-images.sif shub://vsoch/apptainer-images

  From supporting OCI registry (e.g. Azure Container Registry)
  $ apptainer pull image.sif oras://<username>.azurecr.io/namespace/image:tag

apptainer(1)

2-Feb-2026 Auto generated by spf13/cobra

apptainer(1).