- Docker commands that don't run containers, for example listing container images or volumes, don't necessarily trigger an exit from Resource Saver mode as Docker Desktop can serve such commands without unnecessarily waking up the Linux VM.

> [!NOTE]
>
> Docker Desktop exits the Resource Saver mode automatically when it needs to.
> Commands that cause an exit from Resource Saver take a little longer to execute
> (about 3 to 10 seconds) as Docker Desktop restarts the Linux VM.
> It's generally faster on Mac and Linux, and slower on Windows with Hyper-V.
> Once the Linux VM is restarted, subsequent container runs occur immediately as usual.

## Resource Saver mode versus Pause

Resource Saver has higher precedence than the older [Pause](pause.md) feature,
meaning that while Docker Desktop is in Resource Saver mode, manually pausing
Docker Desktop is not possible (nor does it make sense since Resource Saver
actually stops the Docker Desktop Linux VM). In general, we recommend keeping
Resource Saver enabled as opposed to disabling it and using the manual Pause
feature, as it results in much better CPU and memory savings.

## Resource Saver mode on Windows

Resource Saver works a bit differently on Windows with WSL. Instead of
stopping the WSL VM, it only pauses the Docker Engine inside the
`docker-desktop` WSL distribution. That's because in WSL there's a single Linux VM
shared by all WSL distributions, so Docker Desktop can't stop the Linux VM (i.e.,
the WSL Linux VM is not owned by Docker Desktop). As a result, Resource Saver
reduces CPU utilization on WSL, but it does not reduce Docker's memory
utilization. 

To reduce memory utilization on WSL, we instead recommend that
users enable WSL's `autoMemoryReclaim` feature as described in the
[Docker  Desktop WSL docs](/manuals/desktop/features/wsl/_index.md). Finally, since Docker Desktop does not
stop the Linux VM on WSL, exit from Resource Saver mode is immediate (there's
no exit delay).