[Bug]: Image size vs reclaimed space discrepancy

[nigelpoulton]

I have done the following

• I have searched the existing issues
• If possible, I've reproduced the issue using the 'main' branch of this project

Steps to reproduce

1. Pull or build an image
2. List images with verbose flag to see image size
3. Delete the image and reclaimed space will always be a lot more than the image size displayed in step 2

Current behavior

Listing images shows the image size as ~110MB

$ container image ls -v
NAME         TAG   INDEX DIGEST                  OS      ARCH    SIZE
swift-demo   01    b130ac661a8a0488059ac4e6...   linux   arm64   110.7 MB

Deleting the image reclaims more space than the size of the image (reclaimed 446MB when the image was listed as only 110MB)

$ container image rm swift-demo:01
swift-demo:01
Reclaimed 446.4 MB in disk space

Expected behavior

I would expect the reclaimed space to match the size of the image (as per container image ls -v) or at least be similar. Even if the value displayed in container image ls is compressed or something different, it's confusing that the two numbers are so different.

Environment

- OS: macOS 26.0.1 (25A362)
- Xcode: 26.0
- Container: 0.5.0

Relevant log output

N/A

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct