VMware Tools Help : VMware Tools Control Panel : Shrink a Virtual Disk

Shrink a Virtual Disk
Shrinking a virtual disk reclaims unused space in the virtual disk and reduces the amount of space the virtual disk occupies on the host.
Important
Shrinking disks is not allowed under the following circumstances:
 
Shrinking a disk is a two-step process. In the preparation step, VMware Tools reclaims all unused portions of disk partitions (such as deleted files) and prepares them for shrinking. This step takes place in the guest operating system. During this phase, you can still interact with the virtual machine.
In the shrink step, the VMware application reduces the size of the disk based on the disk space reclaimed during the preparation step. If the disk has empty space, this process reduces the amount of space the virtual disk occupies on the host drive. The shrink step takes place outside the virtual machine and takes considerable time, depending on the size of the disk. The virtual machine stops responding while VMware Tools shrinks the disks.
Important
For your convenience, some newer versions of some VMware products include a Compact button or menu command, which performs the same function as the Shrink command. You can use the Compact command when the virtual machine is powered off. The shrinking process is much quicker when you use the Compact command.
 
Prerequisites
Procedure
1
Click the Shrink tab in the VMware Tools control panel.
If the disk cannot be shrunk, the tab shows a description of the reason.
2
If you deselect some partitions, the whole disk still shrinks. The deselected partitions, however, are not wiped for shrinking, and the shrink process does not reduce the size of the virtual disk as much as it would with all partitions selected.
VMware Tools reclaims all unused portions of disk partitions (such as deleted files) and prepares them for shrinking. During this phase, you can still interact with the virtual machine.
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