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Although virtual machines run other programs and manipulate files, they are still files themselves.
Because of this, you can back them up by making a copy to external media and restore the virtual
machines by copying back.
Note You cannot copy a Boot Camp virtual machine, because instead of having a virtual hard disk, the
Fusion virtual machine uses the Boot Camp partition.
Prerequisites
Shut down or power off the virtual machine and shut down Fusion.
Procedure
1 Connect to the media to which you will be copying the virtual machine.
2 Browse to the Virtual Machines folder (usually in your user/Documents folder) and select the virtual
machine to copy.
3 Right-click and select Copy "virtual machine name".
4 Open the external media in the Finder, right-click and select Paste Item.
The contents of the virtual machine package is copied to the external media. You can reverse the process
to restore the copied virtual machine to your Mac.
Using Time Machine When You Have Fusion on Your Mac
If you use Time Machine, exclude virtual machines from the backup.
Any change to a virtual machine's virtual hard disk file results in the entire file being backed up. When you
have a 40GB virtual machine, having Time Machine back it up every hour can fill a hard disk quickly.
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Exclude a Virtual Machine From Time Machine
To prevent problems with your virtual machines and to save space on your backup media, you
should not back up virtual machines with Time Machine.
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Use Shared and Mirrored Folders If You Back Up Your Mac With Time Machine
To use Time Machine to back up data and documents from your virtual machines, keep those files
on the Mac.
Exclude a Virtual Machine From Time Machine
To prevent problems with your virtual machines and to save space on your backup media, you should not
back up virtual machines with Time Machine.
If you do not exclude virtual machines from Time Machine backups, Time Machine can back up a virtual
machine while it is running. Restoring from this kind of backup would overwrite your current virtual
machines with versions that are incomplete and potentially damaged. For the recommended method of
backing up virtual machines, see Copy a Virtual Machine to External Media.
Using VMware Fusion
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