Fix Docker "port is already allocated" and "address already in use"

Which error do you have?

If another container has it

If it belongs to another Compose project, stop that project from its folder with docker compose down, so its other containers stop too.

A container with a restart policy (restart: always or unless-stopped) starts again when Docker restarts. To stop that: docker update --restart=no <container-name>.

docker ps --filter "publish=5432"

docker stop <container-name>

If a program on your machine has it

Find it like any other port and stop it: see the guides for Windows, macOS and Linux. A database installed as a service should be stopped as a service, not killed.

Or publish on a different host port

The container can keep its port; only the host side changes. Here the database is reachable on localhost:5433:

docker run -d -p 5433:5432 postgres:16

services:
  db:
    image: postgres:16
    ports:
      - "5433:5432"

See container names instead of com.docker.backend

Ordinary port tools show Docker's own process (com.docker.backend, docker-proxy) for every published port, and killing that would stop all of Docker. portfind asks Docker which container publishes each port, shows the container, image and Compose project, and stops just that container when you choose it.

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpratap2111/portfind/main/install.ps1 | iex

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rpratap2111/portfind/main/install.sh | sh