$Date: 2025-08-11 19:18:47 +0200 (Mon, 11 Aug 2025) $

VBoxManage clonemedium

VBoxManage-clonemedium 1
VBoxManage-clonemedium create a clone of a medium &product-name;
`VBoxManage clonemedium` uuid source-medium uuid target-medium disk dvd floppy --existing --format= VDI VMDK VHD RAW other --variant= Standard Fixed Split2G Stream ESX

## Description

The `VBoxManage clonemedium` command enables you to clone an existing medium (virtual disk, DVD, or floppy), which is typically an image file. Only the Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) differs between the original image and the cloned image.

You can use the Virtual Media Manager to transfer the cloned image to another host system or reimport it into &product-name;. See and .

uuid | source-medium

  Specifies the UUID or the absolute or relative pathname of the source medium to clone. You can specify the UUID of the medium only if it is registered. Use the `VBoxManage list hdds` command to list registered images.

uuid | target-medium

  Specifies the UUID or the absolute or relative pathname of the target (clone) medium. You can specify the UUID of the target medium only if it is registered. Use the `VBoxManage list hdds` command to list registered images.

`disk` | `dvd` | `floppy`

  Specifies the type of the medium to clone. Valid values are `disk`, `dvd`, and `floppy`. The default value is `disk`.

`--existing`

  Performs the clone operation by overwriting an existing target medium. The result is that only the portion of the source medium that fits into the existing target medium is copied.

  If the target medium is smaller than the source, only the portion of the source medium up to the size of the target medium is copied.

  If the target medium is larger than the source, the remaining part of the target medium is unchanged.

`--format`

  Specifies the file format of the target medium if it differs from the format of the source medium. Valid values are `VDI`, `VMDK`, `VHD`, `RAW`, and other.

  What file formats can other be?
`--variant=Standard | Fixed | Split2G | Stream | ESX [,...]`

  Specifies the file format variant for the target medium, which is a comma-separated list of variants. Following are the valid values:

  - `Standard` is the default disk image type, which has a dynamically allocated file size.

  - `Fixed` uses a disk image that has a fixed file size.

  - `Split2G` indicates that the disk image is split into 2GB segments. This value is for VMDK only.

  - `Stream` optimizes the disk image for downloading. This value is for VMDK only.

  - `ESX` is used for some VMWare products. This value is for VMDK only.

  Note that not all variant combinations are valid. Specifying incompatible variant values in the list will produce an error message.

For compatibility with earlier versions of &product-name;, you can use the `clonevdi` and `clonehd` commands instead of the `clonemedium` command.

## Examples

The following command creates a clone of the `disk01.vdi` disk image file. The clone is called `disk02.vdi`.

    $ VBoxManage clonemedium disk01.vdi disk02.vdi

The following command creates a clone of the `disk01.vdi` disk image file. The clone is in VMDK format and is called `disk02.vmdk`.

    $ VBoxManage clonemedium disk01.vdi disk02.vmdk --format VMDK

## See Also