How to Transfer a Droplet Snapshot to a Different Team

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.

You can transfer Droplet snapshots between any of your DigitalOcean teams. You can also transfer Droplet snapshots to a specific user who can choose to accept the snapshot into any of their teams.

Before you transfer a snapshot, you should know:

• Snapshots are moved, not copied. When you transfer a snapshot, it is removed from its original team. If you want to retain a copy of the snapshot, create a second snapshot before initiating a transfer.

• IP addresses are associated with Droplets, not snapshots. This means snapshot transfers aren’t well-suited for moving applications with IP-based configuration settings. You can use DigitalOcean teams to share access to resources with multiple users.

• You cannot transfer volume snapshots. As an alternative, you can use tools like SnapShooter, rsync or SFTP to copy the data to another volume.

Transfer a Snapshot

To transfer a Droplet to another DigitalOcean team, you first need to take a snapshot of it.

To transfer a Droplet snapshot, in the control panel’s left menu, click Backups & Snapshots. On the Snapshots tab, find the snapshot you want to transfer. Open the snapshot’s More menu and select Transfer Snapshot.

In the Transfer Snapshot To menu that opens, choose how to transfer the snapshot:

• Team: You can transfer snapshots directly to any of your DigitalOcean teams.

• Email address: You can transfer snapshots to other users by entering their email address. When they accept the transfer, they choose any team they are a part of to receive the snapshot.

With either method, someone with an owner or member role on the receiving team needs to accept the transfer. If you have the owner or member role on the receiving team, the transfer happens automatically without the need to manually accept.

Once you choose the recipient, click Request Transfer. If the transfer requires manual acceptance, the recipient receives an email asking them to review and respond to the transfer.

After you initiate the transfer, the menu title changes to Snapshot Transfer Pending and the options change to a single Cancel Transfer button. You can cancel the transfer at any time before the recipient accepts.

Receiving a Snapshot

When someone requests to transfer a snapshot to you or to a team where you have the owner or member role, you receive an email.

Warning

A snapshot is a disk-level duplicate of the Droplet from which it was taken, which could include SSH keys or other configuration that a sender could use to access Droplets created from that snapshot. Accept transfers only from trusted sources.

To respond to the snapshot transfer request, click the Review and Respond button in the email.

Then, in the dropdown menu, select a team to accept the transfer and click Accept This Snapshot.

When you accept the transfer, it appears in the Snapshots table. The More menu contains the same options that are available for snapshots you create yourself, including Create Droplet. After accepting a transfer, you may need to reload the page to see it.

The original owner of the snapshot receives an email if you accept the transfer. Once transfer of a snapshot is complete, the originating team is longer billed for it.