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bbowens
Contributor
Contributor

.vdi for Mac? VMWare Fusion

Hi, is there a way to create a .vdi or similar from an existing Mac installation? In this particular case, I need to image my Mojave desktop, including the installed applications, for import and creation of a VM on a Monterey Mac Mini (Intel, i7).

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Thread reported to moderators, asking them to move it to the Fusion area.

 


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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

No, there's no way to do a direct conversion.  What you can do as a workaround is this:

1) Make a clone or time machine backup of the source machine (carbon copy cloner recommended) to an external USB drive

2) Create a new Mojave Virtual machine on the target machine.  You'll want to customize the hard drive before booting to make sure it's big enough.

3) During the initial install of the OS, before you create a user, when prompted to 'migrate from another mac' plug in your external drive, and use the migration wizard to move all your data and apps over.

 

That's essentially the same process as migrating from one mac to another.  Do note that a lot of Mac software may not work properly if it relies on 3d acceleration (which isn't available for MacOS).