How do we shrink macOS guest VMs? I'm open to manual or automated solutions, running either in the guest VM or the host OS or both. With (the competitor's product) I have scripts which go something like this: In Guest VM: * diskutil secureErase freespace 0 'Macintosh HD' In Host OS: * Defragment: /Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -d /path/to/disk * Compact: /Applications/VMware Fusion.app/Contents/Library/vmware-vdiskmanager -k /path/to/disk This is not perfect, but does a decent job of freeing up unused space. Can we come up with a similar pathway for compacting PVM files in Parallels?
So far, the only way I've found to reliably shrink an macOS VM in Parallels is to use this method: To shrink macOS VM in Parallels (as of version 18 in 2022) the only really effective way is to duplicate the hard drive and copy files over: - From Parallels VM Config, for the VM you want to shrink, go to Configure>Hardware and add a disk with the "Expanding disk" option checked. - This disk will only take about as much space as you are actually using. - Boot into the VM system - (optional) Rename the 2nd hard drive (so you don't mix them up, they may both be named "Macintosh HD" - Download the free Carbon Copy Cloner v5 (or v6, depending on which OS version) and clone your boot HD to the new HD - Shutdown the VM - From Parallels VM Config, remove the old HD, sending it to the trash (but don't empty trash yet!!!) - Boot the VM to confirm that it's working fine. - On the host machine, empty the trash to delete the old HD file This is adapted from here
I have that enabled for VMs running Windows, and it works fine, but as far as I know, that feature does not work with VMs that are running macOS.