You can perform a manual or automated cleanup of certain virtual machines to free up space on your Mac. The cleanup compacts and defragments the virtual machine.

When you delete files from your virtual machine, Fusion does not return the space to your Mac. Cleaning up the virtual machine performs the following operations.

  • Compacts the virtual machine and returns freed space to your Mac.

    Note:

    Only Windows virtual machines return freed space to your Mac.

  • Defragments the virtual machine.

  • Consolidates any unconsolidated snapshot files left on the virtual machine. Unconsolidated snapshot files can be left on the virtual machine when manually deleting a snapshot fails.

Disk cleanup is not supported in the following situations.

  • The virtual hard disk uses a FAT32, FAT, or exFAT file system.

  • The virtual hard disk uses a preallocated disk format.

Prerequisites

To perform a manual cleanup, shut down or power off the virtual machine. You cannot perform the manual cleanup while the virtual machine is powered on or suspended.

Procedure

  1. Select Window > Virtual Machine Library.
  2. Select a virtual machine in the Virtual Machine Library window and click Settings.
  3. Under System Settings in the Settings window, click General.
  4. Select a cleanup option.

    Manual

    Click Clean Up Virtual Machine.

    This option is only available when a Windows virtual machine has disk space to reclaim, or when any virtual machine has unconsolidated snapshot files.

    Fusion displays a progress dialog box as it cleans up the virtual machine.

    Automated

    Select Clean up disks after shutting down virtual machine.

    Fusion cleans up the virtual machine every time the virtual machine is shut down.