`docker compose logs -f` already does this — but the one-liner with --tail and filters is the more useful day-to-day workflow when you only care about recent activity from a subset of services.
Bash
# Tail recent logs from all services in a compose project
docker compose logs -f --tail=100
# Tail only specific services
docker compose logs -f api worker
# Just errors (grep — drops timestamp colors but works in any shell)
docker compose logs -f --no-color | grep -i 'error\|warn\|fatal'
# Tail a specific running container by name
docker logs -f --tail=200 myapp_web_1
# Find a container ID quickly
docker ps --format '{{.ID}}\t{{.Names}}\t{{.Status}}' | column -t
# Save the last 5 minutes of logs to a file
docker logs --since 5m myapp_web_1 > web-recent.logSave your own code snippets
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