Dev Tools · 2h ago
Reclaim wasted disk space in VirtualBox VMs on Windows
Deleting files inside a VirtualBox VM doesn't free space on the host. To reclaim it, you must zero-fill free space inside the VM using the zerofree tool, then compact the VDI file with VBoxManage. The process involves booting into single-user mode, running zerofree, and executing the compact command on the host.
Meridian48 take
A useful but niche sysadmin tip; the manual steps highlight a long-standing UX gap in VirtualBox's disk management.
virtualboxdisk-compaction