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MyCommunityName
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Disk space used by Mac 10.9 VM

I have two screenshots below.

The first is Disk Utility on a Mavericks VM -- notice that it has used 14.02 GB

The second is Finder from the host machine - notice the disk is 35GB

What is using the @~20GB space? How can I reclaim it? on an SSD drive this is quite expensive!

(Fusion -> VM -> Settings -> General - has no reclaimable space)

disk utility.png

host finder.png

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tracywang
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Thanks for using Fusion.

You may get the space back by shrink the disk.

In the VM, run terminal and go to /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools

run sudo ./vmware-tools-cli disk shrink

Refer: VMware KB: Shrinking a virtual disk using scripts in VMware Fusion 5.x and 6.x

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tracywang
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Thanks for using Fusion.

You may get the space back by shrink the disk.

In the VM, run terminal and go to /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools

run sudo ./vmware-tools-cli disk shrink

Refer: VMware KB: Shrinking a virtual disk using scripts in VMware Fusion 5.x and 6.x

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MacsRule
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The method I use in the Mavericks VM is similar to tracywang's method but more direct.

With the Mavericks VM running, paste:

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Tools/vmware-tools-cli disk shrink /

directly into Terminal in the Mavericks VM and enter your password when requested. I have that command saved in a TextEdit file in the Mavericks VM so I can simply copy it as necessary.

WoodyZ
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To add to what's been said, here is the fully qualified command line used in a default install of OS X.

Copy and paste, as is, into a Terminal window and then click into the windows and press Enter and type your password.

sudo /Library/Application\ Support/VMware\ Tools/vmware-tools-cli disk shrink /

During the shrink process you'll get two messages about the disk being full, that's just the wipe file and will be deleted shortly before the actual shrink process starts and can be dismissed and ignored the warning messages.

The most important thing you need to know is that because the virtual Macintosh HD is a "monolithicSparse" type disk vs. a "twoGbMaxExtentSparse" you'll need no less then the amount of used space on the virtual hard disk to be free on the Host disk and a bit extra for overhead, otherwise the operation will fail.  With a "twoGbMaxExtentSparse" type disk only 2 GB and a bit extra for overhead is required.  As an example, right now the virtual Macintosh HD has 14.02 GB used and therefore to successfully shrink it you need to have that plus a bit more free on the Host Macintosh HD.

BTW Once you've used that command it will be stored in the Bash History and the can bring up Terminal and press the up arrow key to bring it to the active command line and then press Enter to use it again.

MyCommunityName
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Thanks.

& fwiw I found a good description of the different disk tyes here: http://sanbarrow.com/vmdk/disktypes.html

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MyCommunityName
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I have upgraded to Fusion7.

I have no folder: /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools

Any idea where I can find vmware-tools-cli

?

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WoodyZ
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That's the correct path,  I just looked at an OS X VM created under VMware Fusion 7 and it was located at: /Library/Application Support/VMware Tools/

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