ECR Unused Images (Not Pulled)
Every stored image is billed by size whether or not anything pulls it, and a repository with no lifecycle policy grows without bound.
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AWS
Found, explained, handed over.
Findings with a dollar figure attached, idle, oversized, orphaned, unscheduled and undiscounted spend.
Detect
ZopNight checks this automatically across AWS, with read-only access to the account.
Explain
Every finding says exactly what to change: Add a lifecycle policy to ECR repository. Where the saving can be proven it is priced; where it cannot, the finding says so.
Fix
The finding opens with the fix already written out, step by step, so it is one ticket, not an investigation.
- Applies to
- ECR Repositories on AWS
- The fix, by hand
- ECR Console → repository the resource → Images → sort by Last pull time and review the images not pulled in 90+ days. Usage, not tag status, is the signal here, so this INCLUDES tagged images nobody pulls.
- Confirm none of those images are intentionally retained for rollback / DR before deleting.
- Delete the unused images by digest:
aws ecr batch-delete-image --repository-name ‹name› --image-ids imageDigest=‹sha256:...›(or select them in the console and choose Delete). Deletions are permanent. - Note: a native ECR lifecycle policy prunes only by tag status + age (expire-untagged / keep-last-N-tagged) and will NOT remove a tagged image that is simply never pulled, so a lifecycle policy alone cannot reclaim this storage; delete by pull-age.
- Optionally add pull-age automation going forward, then re-run discovery to confirm the reclaimed storage.
These are the steps the finding carries in the product.
- Category
- Orphaned resources. Resources no longer attached to anything that needs them, such as unattached volumes and unassigned IPs.
- Where it appears
- The Savings tab of Recommendations, with every affected resource listed.
- Rule ID
RC-022- Full reference
Related checks
See the orphaned resources in your account.
Connect a read-only role and the first pass runs on your own estate. This check, and the rest of the catalogue, with it.
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- $30M+annualised cloud spend under management
- 550K+resources tracked since launch
- 20-60%off the bill in the first month
- SOC 2Type II report, plus ISO 27001
Figures published on zop.dev.