topic Re: Reduce the size of existing virtual disk in VMware Workstation Player Discussions

Reduce the size of existing virtual disk

ZarNiMin — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 05:22:00 GMT

Hi Sir,

I would like to reduce the size of existing virtual disk to 60GB. Please refer below screen shot. The reason is that the data size is growing. Thanks.

Best Regards,

Zar

Re: Reduce the size of existing virtual disk

scott28tt — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 08:48:18 GMT

@ZarNiMin

Moderator: Please do not create multiple threads on the same topic. Your duplicate in the Workstation Pro area has been archived.

Re: Reduce the size of existing virtual disk

a_p_ — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 10:17:44 GMT

Welcome to the Community,

a supported way to reduce a virtual disk's size is to use the free VMware Converter.
In the converter tool you can use the advanced disk settings to specify the required target disk size.

André

Re: Reduce the size of existing virtual disk

wila — Mon, 14 Dec 2020 12:08:29 GMT

Hi,

Reducing the size of the disk cannot be done without cloning the VM (as André suggests).
You might however be able to shrink the disk by reclaiming unused space and give that back to the host.

How-to do that depends on the OS in the guest VM.

If your guest OS is Windows and you are using VMware Workstation professional then your best option is to do so from the menu in VM -> Manage -> Clean up Disks.

I don't think VMware Player has this option.

Here's an article that discusses the most common ways to do so regardless:

https://www.vi-toolkit.com/wiki/index.php?title=Shrink_guest_on_hosted_platform

--
Wil