There are three operations related to snapshots:
- You can take a snapshot.
This makes a copy of the machine's current state, to which you can
go back at any given time later.
- If your VM is currently running, select "Take
snapshot" from the "Machine" pull-down menu of the VM
window.
- If your VM is currently in either the "saved" or the
"powered off" state (as displayed next to the VM in the
VirtualBox main window), click on the "Snapshots" tab on the
top right of the main window, and then
- either on the small camera icon (for "Take
snapshot") or
- right-click on the "Current State" item in the
list and select "Take snapshot" from the menu.
In any case, a window will pop up and ask you for a snapshot
name. This name is purely for reference purposes to help you
remember the state of the snapshot. For example, a useful name
would be "Fresh installation from scratch, no Guest Additions", or
"Service Pack 3 just installed". You can also add a longer text in
the "Description" field if you want.
Your new snapshot will then appear in the snapshots list.
Underneath your new snapshot, you will see an item called "Current
state", signifying that the current state of your VM is a
variation based on the snapshot you took earlier. If you later
take another snapshot, you will see that they will be displayed in
sequence, and each subsequent snapshot is derived from an earlier
one:
VirtualBox imposes no limits on the number of snapshots you
can take. The only practical limitation is disk space on your
host: each snapshot stores the state of the virtual machine and
thus occupies some disk space. (See the next section for details
on what exactly is stored in a snapshot.)
