Deleting snapshots in VMware Fusion

Products

• VMware Desktop Hypervisor

Issue/Introduction

This article provides the steps to delete snapshots in VMware Fusion.

 

You may want to delete the snapshots associated with the virtual disk if the virtual machine size has increased beyond the size allocated to it.

Environment

VMware Fusion Pro 8.x
VMware Fusion 11.x
VMware Fusion 5.x
VMware Fusion Pro 11.x
VMware Fusion 7.x
VMware Fusion 3.x
VMware Fusion 10.x
VMware Fusion 6.x
VMware Fusion 4.x
VMware Fusion 2.x
VMware Fusion 8.x
VMware Fusion Pro 10.x

Resolution

Note: This article assumes familiarity with how snapshots work. For more information on snapshots, see Understanding Snapshots and AutoProtect in VMware Fusion (1014509).

To delete a snapshot:

1. Shut down the virtual machine.
2. In Fusion, go to:
    
   • Fusion 3.x and 2.x: Virtual Machine > Snapshots
   • Fusion 10.x, 8.x, 7.x, 6.x, 5.x, and 4.x: Virtual Machine > Snapshots > Snapshots
      
   Note: In Fusion 3.x and earlier, disable Only show my snapshots at the bottom left corner of the window. This shows snapshots taken automatically with AutoProtect, as well as snapshots you took manually.
    
3. Select the snapshot to delete.
   
   Note: You can delete multiple snapshots at once. To delete snapshots that are next to each other in the list, select the first snapshot and then hold shift while you select the last snapshot. To delete snapshots that are not next to each other, hold command while selecting each one. Deleting multiple snapshots requires additional disk space and time.
    
4. Click Delete snapshot. This consolidates the snapshot(s) being deleted into the snapshot taken immediately before it (or the main virtual disk, if you are deleting the only snapshot).

If you receive an error that there is insufficient disk space to perform the operation, see Consolidating snapshots in Fusion (1020000).

 

Additional Information

Deleting your snapshots does not delete the information contained it. It merges the snapshot you are deleting with the main virtual disk (or the previous snapshot in the chain).

This is not the same as rolling back to a previous snapshot. Rolling back to an earlier snapshot deletes the information in the current snapshot, and reverts your virtual machine to the state of the specified earlier snapshot.