How to fix Volume myvolume declared as external, but could not be found in Docker

The most direct fix is to create the volume that Docker Compose is looking for:

docker volume create myvolume

Replace myvolume with the exact name shown in the error message. Then run your compose file again:

docker-compose up -d

List all volumes to see what exists on your system:

docker volume ls

Look for your volume name. Remember that:
- Names are case-sensitive
- Compose-created volumes are prefixed with the project name (e.g., myproject_dbdata)

If you see a similar name with a prefix, that's likely the volume you need to reference.

If you don't need the volume to be externally managed, remove the external: true line and let Compose create it automatically:

Before:

volumes:
  myvolume:
    external: true

After:

volumes:
  myvolume:

Now docker-compose up will create the volume if it doesn't exist.

If your external volume has a different name than what you want to reference in the compose file, use the name attribute:

volumes:
  db-data:
    external: true
    name: my-postgres-db_data

This lets you use db-data in your service definitions while referencing the actual volume my-postgres-db_data.

If you're using Docker contexts (remote hosts, Docker Desktop vs WSL, etc.), verify you're connected to the right one:

# Show current context
docker context show

# List all contexts
docker context ls

# Switch context if needed
docker context use default

Volumes are specific to each Docker host/context.

Some versions of Docker Compose (around v2.2.0) had a bug with external volume parsing. If you're affected, explicitly specify the name:

volumes:
  myvolume:
    name: myvolume
    external: true

Alternatively, update Docker Compose to the latest version:

# Check version
docker compose version

# Update (on Linux)
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install docker-compose-plugin