Backup any virtual machine that you’ve created using VirtualBox. It’ll save you a lot of time later if you create a full backup of your VM and it’s so easy to do.
In VirtualBox you can of course use Snapshots to take a virtual machine back to a time when it was working just fine. But Snapshots won’t always work. They’re great, but limited in what they can do.
Having a full backup of the entire backup of the VirtualBox virtual machine means that you can quickly replace it.
How To Backup A VirtualBox Machine.
VirtualBox stores all the virtual machines that it creates inside a single folder. One folder for each machine.
In order to backup a virtual machine, all you need to do is to copy and paste that folder into a different location on your PC. It’s as easy as that.
Make sure that your virtual machine is shutdown first. It should be properly shutdown and not simply in sleep or hibernation. And VirtualBox should also be closed down.
By default the location of the VirtualBox virtual machines is C:\Users\Username\VirtualBox VMs
To backup a virtual machine, just open the folder VirtualBox VMs and inside you’ll see folders relating to each VM that you’ve created.
Just copy the entire folder and paste it somewhere else.
It doesn’t really matter where you store your backup, but do keep in mind that it’ll probably be a large size.
In this example I’m backing up a vanilla copy of Windows 10 and it’s well over 10 GB.
How To Restore A VirtualBox VM Backup.
Of course it’s all very well having a backup of your VMs, but then how do you use them? How can you restore a virtual machine from the backup?
It’s a lot easier than you might think. Copy and paste again.
If you’re VirtualBox VM isn’t working and you want to restore it from the backup, close down the VM and also close VirtualBox.
Navigate to the C:\Users\Username\VirtualBox VMs folder.
Open it and then delete the troublesome virtual machine folder.
Then go to wherever you stored your backup VM folder and simply copy and paste it into the VirtualBox VMs folder.
All you’re doing is replacing one folder with another.
VirtualBox won’t know that the folders have been swapped.
Summary.
It’s well worth taking a moment to create a full backup for your VirtualBox virtual machines. It’ll save you a lot of time and effort later on. It comes in especially handy for Windows VMs.
Ideally you’d create a backup as soon as you’ve got your VM up and running. That way it’ll be a clean installation that you’re returning to.
