I use VirtualBox on my Mac when I need to test/use/check something on Windows or Linux. This is very useful application from Sun (and it’s completely free!).

If you use VirtualBox, you’ve probably already seen that the size of the “.vdi” image file can be a lot bigger than disk space actually used in your Virtual Machine. And it grows with time as you use your VM.

There is a solution to that. You can shrink your vdi images to the size that files actually are using inside of them in 3 quick steps:

1. Launch your VM and defragment the disk.
2. Zero free space (use sdelete.exe -c on Windows VM, there are tools for other OS’es too)
3. Compact the vdi file, e.g., on Mac I run such command in Terminal:
   $ VBoxManage modifyhd WindowsXP.vdi –compact

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