How to consolidate orphaned snapshots in VirtualBox?

By | November 26, 2014

Recently I decided to clean some VMs with many "orphaned" snapshots in VirtualBox. I have done it by export and import VM. Following the VirtualBox KB:

OVF cannot describe snapshots that were taken for a virtual machine. As a result, when you export a virtual machine that has snapshots, only the current state of the machine will be exported, and the disk images in the export will have a "flattened" state identical to the current state of the virtual machine.

  1. Click the VM. Select File | Export Appliance from the taskbar at the top of the window.
  2. The Appliance Export Wizard will then appear. Choose the VM, path where to export, format and VM description (optional):

export1

export2

export3

  1. Then please import the VM: select File | Import Appliance from the taskbar at the top of the window.

import

  1. The wizard will then display the virtual machines in the OVF file.