This Post is for Virtual box users. If you know don’t know what is virtualbox, it is visualization software from SUN using which you can use multiple operating system, one Operating system as an application on other. Please check the site to know more about and feel free to download and use it.

So How to reduce the memory consumed by Virtualbox after removing applications installed in it? Theoretically, the Dynamically Expanding Storage option should automatically reduce the size of the Virtualbox file signified by the .vdi extension file. However, this does not happen in practice.

The end result is that the file expands when you install software applications in it but does not contract when you uninstall the same. If you regularly install and uninstall applications, a part of your hard disk will go waste due to this flaw in Virtualbox.

If you are working on Windows, uninstall all unnecessary software applications from Virtualbox. Then defragment your hard disk by using the default disk fragmenting device of the OS. This can be found in Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Disk Defragmenter.

Download any secure delete software application like sDelete. Once the software is extracted, proceed to open the Windows Command Prompt by typing cmd in Start-Run. Navigate to the folder the sdelete directory stored on your hard disk. Once you have reached the folder, key in the command sdelete -c c:/.

This command will add zeroes to the unused space in your C Drive. Shut down Virtualbox. Once the free space has been ‘zeroed’, one must shrink the size of the VM file.

Type the following in your command prompt-

“VboxManage modifyvdi /path/to/your/VM.vdi compact” for Virtualbox 2.0 and “VboxManage clonehd name-of-original-vm.vdi name-of-clone-vm.vdi” for Virtualbox 2.1 and later versions.

Once this process is completed, your VM file has been compacted and you would have more space on your hard disk. However, the process will be completed only when you clone your VM. Add your new VM and delete the old file to complete the process.

You can perform this process every time you have to reduce the size of your VM file.

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