Files and storage

A VM keeps files in three places: on its own disk, in a home folder on your Mac, and in the project folders you share. This page shows which is which, what each command keeps, and how the guest disk keeps free space.

Where your files live

Place	Where the files are	After limanix delete
Guest disk	Inside the VM, outside shared folders; holds NixOS and data written outside mounts	Removed
Managed home	On the Mac beneath ~/.limanix; appears at /home/dev inside the VM	Kept by default; --remove-home removes it
Project mount	A Mac folder that appears in the VM, such as at /workspace	Kept on the Mac

The managed home and read-write project mounts share their files with the Mac: an edit or a deletion on either side changes the same file. A mount is not a backup. To share a project folder, see Shared folders.

The guest disk

The guest disk holds NixOS, the Nix store and every file outside the shared folders, including service data under /var, such as Docker images and volumes. It keeps only the NixOS system the VM runs; each update removes the older ones. Its size is disk in [resources]; see Resources and architecture.

The managed home

Each VM gets its own home folder on the Mac, at <home.root>/<name>-<id>, and sees it at user.home. With the defaults, the home of dev-box could be ~/.limanix/dev-box-a1b2c3d4e5f6, mounted at /home/dev:

limanix.toml

[user]
home = "/home/dev"

[home]
root = "~/.limanix"

The suffix is generated: limanix create prints the actual path, and the home field of limanix list --json shows it. The home holds your files, the dotfiles you keep in it and caches that live in the home. A relative root is resolved from the folder of limanix.toml, and ~ is the home of your Mac account. home.root and user.home cannot change after the VM is created.

What each command keeps

Command	Guest disk	Managed home	Project folders
stop, start	Kept	Kept	Kept
update	Kept and reconfigured	Kept	Kept; mount settings can change
delete, with or without --force	Removed	Kept	Kept
delete --remove-home	Removed	Removed with all its files	Kept

LimaNix has no snapshot or backup command. Before you delete a VM, keep limanix.toml and your module folders, back up the home and project folders you need, and export data that lives only on the guest disk, such as databases or Docker volumes. The TOML recreates the system, not your data.

Recreate a VM

After a delete, limanix create --config limanix.toml creates a new VM from the same file, with a new, empty managed home. The old home stays at the path that delete printed, and LimaNix does not attach it again. Copy the files you need into the new home or a project folder.

Once the VM is deleted, limanix delete --remove-home can no longer remove its old home. Keep the printed path and remove that folder yourself when you no longer need it.

Keep the guest disk from filling up

The VM cleans its Nix store by itself:

Free space on the guest disk	What happens
Less than 20%	The lmxd daemon removes store paths that nothing uses anymore. It checks every 15 minutes and also cleans up after each update.
Less than 10%	The welcome and lmx status warn, lmxd logs what still holds space, and limanix update warns before it starts.

Low space never blocks an update. limanix list shows the used share of the disk in DISK; inside the VM, lmx info shows it too.

The cleanup never deletes what is still in use: the running system, garbage-collector roots such as nix-direnv shells and result links from nix build, and data outside the Nix store, such as Docker images and volumes under /var/lib/docker.

Make room

When the disk stays full, look at what holds space in the VM:

VM

lmx info
sudo lmx logs roots

lmx info shows the usage. sudo lmx logs roots shows the roots that lmxd logged when less than 10% was free; sudo nix-store --gc --print-roots lists the roots now. Remove what you no longer need, such as an old result link, a project's .direnv folder or Docker data with docker system prune. Then collect the store paths they kept:

VM

sudo lmx store reserve

The command collects right away when less than 20% is free, waits for the collection and prints the usage before and after. sudo nix-store --gc collects whatever the free space.

If that is not enough, raise disk in [resources] and run limanix update on the Mac. Tools you removed from your own nix profile stay on disk until nix profile wipe-history; see Packages on the fly.

On the Mac

Lima keeps the guest disk under ~/.lima, or LIMA_HOME when set. LimaNix keeps its records of each VM in ~/Library/Application Support/Limanix, or LIMANIX_HOME when set. Leave both to the limanix commands, and read Troubleshooting before you change anything there.