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Snapshots

Last updated January 30, 2026

Snapshots capture the state of a running sandbox, including the filesystem and installed packages. Use snapshots to skip setup time on subsequent runs.

  • Faster startups: Skip dependency installation by snapshotting after setup.
  • Checkpointing: Save progress on long-running tasks.
  • Sharing environments: Give teammates an identical starting point.

Call snapshot() on a running sandbox:

Once you create a snapshot, the sandbox shuts down automatically and becomes unreachable. You don't need to stop it afterwards.

# Create a snapshot of a running sandbox
sandbox snapshot sb_abc123 --stop
 
# Create a snapshot that expires in 14 days
sandbox snapshot sb_1234567890 --stop --expiration 14d
 
# Create a snapshot that never expires
sandbox snapshot sb_1234567890 --stop --expiration 0

The --stop flag confirms that the sandbox will be stopped when snapshotting. By default, snapshots expire after 30 days. Use --expiration (e.g. --expiration 14d) to set a custom expiration time, or --expiration 0 to never expire the snapshot.

Pass the snapshot ID when creating a new sandbox:

sandbox create --snapshot snap_abc123

View all snapshots for your project:

# List snapshots for the current project
sandbox snapshots list
 
# List snapshots for a specific project
sandbox snapshots list --project my-app

Look up a snapshot by ID:

The CLI doesn't support retrieving a single snapshot by ID. Use sandbox snapshots list to view all snapshots for your project:

sandbox snapshots list

Remove snapshots you no longer need:

# Delete a single snapshot
sandbox snapshots delete snap_abc123
 
# Delete multiple snapshots
sandbox snapshots delete snap_abc123 snap_def456
  • Snapshots expire after 30 days by default
  • You can define a custom expiration time or none at all when creating a snapshot. See the SDK and CLI documentation for more details.
  • See Pricing and Limits for storage costs and limits

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