Snapshots Quickstart

Snapshots are on-demand disk images of DigitalOcean Droplets and volumes saved to your account. Use them to create new Droplets and volumes with the same contents.

Snapshot Droplets and Volumes

To snapshot a Droplet:

1. Shut down the Droplet with sudo shutdown -h now.
2. From the control panel, click the Droplet you want to snapshot.
3. From the Droplet’s page, click Snapshots, then click Take Snapshot.

You can also take a live snapshot by following the same steps without powering down your Droplet.

To snapshot a volume:

1. From the control panel, click Volumes.
2. Open the More menu for the volume you want to snapshot, then click Take Snapshot.

Create Droplets and Volumes from Snapshots

To create a new Droplet from a snapshot:

1. On the Droplet create page, under Choose an image, select Snapshots.
2. Choose the snapshot you’d like to create the Droplet from.
3. Fill out the rest of the choices on the create page, then click Create.

To create a new volume from a snapshot:

1. From the control panel, click Backups & Snapshots, then Snapshots, and finally Volumes.
2. Select any volume snapshot, click its More menu, and click Create Volume.
3. In the window that opens, choose the size of the new volume, then click Create Volume.

Delete Snapshots

To permanently delete a snapshot:

1. From the control panel, click Backups & Snapshots, then Snapshots.
2. From a snapshot’s More menu, click Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion by clicking Delete Snapshot in the window that opens.