find

The multipass find command without any argument lists the images Multipass can use to run instances with launch on your system and associated version information. For example:

Image                       Aliases              Version          Description
22.04                       jammy                20260515         Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
24.04                       noble                20260518         Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
25.10                       questing             20260520         Ubuntu 25.10
26.04                       resolute,lts,ubuntu  20260520         Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
core:core16                                      current          Ubuntu Core 16
core:core18                                      current          Ubuntu Core 18
core:core20                                      current          Ubuntu Core 20
core:core22                                      current          Ubuntu Core 22
core:core24                                      current          Ubuntu Core 24
core:core26                                      current          Ubuntu Core 26
debian                      trixie               20260601         Debian Trixie
fedora                                           20260422         Fedora 44

Launch aliases, version information and a brief description are shown next to each name in the command output.

Launching an image using its name or its alias gives the same result. For example, multipass launch 23.10 and multipass launch mantic will launch the same image.

The aliases lts and devel are dynamic, that is, they change the image they alias from time to time, depending on the Ubuntu release.

The available aliases are:

  • default - the default image on that remote

  • lts - the latest Long Term Support image

  • devel - the latest development series image (only on daily:)

  • <codename> - the code name of a Ubuntu series

  • <c> - the first letter of the code name

  • <XX.YY> - the version number of a series

The list of available images is updated periodically. The option --force-update forces an immediate update of the list from the servers, before showing the output.

The option --show-unsupported includes old Ubuntu images, which were available at some point but are not supported anymore. This means that some features of Multipass might now work on these images and no user support is given. However, they are still available for testing.

The command also supports searching through available images. For example, multipass find mantic returns:

Image                       Aliases           Version          Description
mantic                                        20240206         Ubuntu 23.10
daily:mantic                                  20240206         Ubuntu 23.10

The full multipass help find output explains the available options:

Usage: multipass find [options] [<remote:>][<string>]
Lists available images matching <string> for creating instances from.
With no search string, lists all aliases for supported releases.

Options:
  -h, --help          Displays help on commandline options
  -v, --verbose       Increase logging verbosity. Repeat the 'v' in the short
                      option for more detail. Maximum verbosity is obtained with
                      4 (or more) v's, i.e. -vvvv.
  --show-unsupported  Show unsupported cloud images as well
  --format <format>   Output list in the requested format.
                      Valid formats are: table (default), json, csv and yaml
  --force-update      Force the image information to update from the network

Arguments:
  string              An optional value to search for in [<remote:>]<string>
                      format, where <remote> can be either ‘release’ or ‘daily’.
                      If <remote> is omitted, it will search ‘release‘ first,
                      and if no matches are found, it will then search ‘daily‘.
                      <string> can be a partial image hash or a release version,
                      codename or alias.