How to move VirtualBox files?

Question

By default VirtualBox stores all data in a directory below the home directory. I know how to change it but how can I change the location of existing images (without editing VirtualBox.xml manually)?

^{I'm working on Windows and don't want to try using any NTFS links}.

Answer 1

I do not think this is possible.

You can move the VDI to the new location, but I don't think you can avoid XML modification. As an alternative (but that is in fact the same as XML edition) would creating a new virtual machine with the GUI and choosing the moved image as disk would suit your needs?

Answer 2

If you mean to MOVE all your VM to an entirely new location, you should just follow these 2 replies:

• https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48258#p219275
• https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48258#p219285

Copying the post here:

1. Shut down VirtualBox, back up your .VirtualBox\VirtualBox.xml file.
2. Find your existing "Virtualbox VMs" folder, and copy (not move) the whole folder with contents to your new drive E:

3. Run VirtualBox, then for each VM in turn:

   3.1 Right click the VM name and select "Remove" from the popup menu. Answer no to the "physically delete files?" question.

   3.2 Select the Machine|Add.. menu item, navigate to the VMs new location on drive E:, and select the .vbox file.

   3.3. Repeat for any remaining VMs.

4. In File|Preferences, set the default machine path to "E:\VirtualBox VMs"
5. Test each of the VMs. Only after you are sure they all work, delete the old VM containing folder, i.e. delete "C:\VirtualBox VMs".

LAST IMPORTANT THING:

after removing a VM from the UI you have to close VirtualBox, and leave it closed for long enough for the background VBoxSVC task to time out and terminate also. Then you can start the VirtualBox app again and use Machine|Add to add back the VMs removed in the previous step.

Answer 3

I never used virtualbox on windows but on ubuntu you move the VDI and in virtualbox GUI you right click on the VM and use Configuration Menu -> storage where you can change the VDI localization to where you moved the file. Regarding the other machine files definition, you move them and in GUI you go to Preferences and change the position of default machines directory to the diretory you moved.

Answer 4

This worked for me with the MacOS release of VirtualBox as well (release 4.1.12). I waited 5-10 seconds for VirtualBox to quit before re-launching. I looked in Activity Monitor to make sure VBoxSVC had quit properly.

If you don't do this, you will get an error that looks something like the following (I'm copying and pasting someone else's error message which comes from Windows). If you get this error, it's simply because you didn't quit VirtualBox or wait long enough for VBoxSVC to quit.

Failed to open virtual machine located in E:/<path>/<machine_name>/<machine_name>.vbox.

Cannot register the hard disk 'E:\<path>\<machine_name>\Snapshots/{0ece4bff-9185-4cff-9069-b3d1f4536394}.vdi' {0ece4bff-9185-4cff-9069-b3d1f4536394} 
because a hard disk 'C:\<path>\<machine_name>\Snapshots/{0ece4bff-9185-4cff-9069-b3d1f4536394}.vdi' with UUID {0ece4bff-9185-4cff-9069-b3d1f4536394} already exists.

Result Code: E_INVALIDARG (0x80070057)
Component: VirtualBox
Interface: IVirtualBox {c28be65f-1a8f-43b4-81f1-eb60cb516e66}