Sandbox snapshots

Snapshots let you create a persistent point-in-time capture of a running sandbox, including both its filesystem and memory state. You can then use a snapshot to spawn new sandboxes that start from the exact same state.

The original sandbox continues running after the snapshot is created, and a single snapshot can be used to create many new sandboxes.

Prerequisites

Snapshots require templates with envd version v0.5.0 or above. If you are using a custom template created before envd v0.5.0, you need to rebuild it.

You can check the template envd version using the e2b template list command or by viewing the templates list on the dashboard.

Snapshots vs. Pause/Resume

	Pause/Resume	Snapshots
Effect on original sandbox	Pauses (stops) the sandbox	Sandbox briefly pauses, then continues running
Relationship	One-to-one — resume restores the same sandbox	One-to-many — snapshot can spawn many new sandboxes
Use case	Suspend and resume a single sandbox	Create a reusable checkpoint

For pause/resume functionality, see Persistence.

Snapshot flow

The sandbox is briefly paused during the snapshot process but automatically returns to running state. The sandbox ID stays the same after the snapshot completes.

During the snapshot, the sandbox is temporarily paused and resumed. This causes all active connections (e.g. WebSocket, PTY, command streams) to be dropped. Make sure your client handles reconnection properly.

Create a snapshot

You can create a snapshot from a running sandbox instance.

JavaScript & TypeScript

import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const sandbox = await Sandbox.create()

// Create a snapshot from a running sandbox
const snapshot = await sandbox.createSnapshot()
console.log('Snapshot ID:', snapshot.snapshotId)

You can also create a snapshot by sandbox ID using the static method.

JavaScript & TypeScript

import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

// Create a snapshot by sandbox ID
const snapshot = await Sandbox.createSnapshot(sandboxId)
console.log('Snapshot ID:', snapshot.snapshotId)

Create a sandbox from a snapshot

The snapshot ID can be used directly with Sandbox.create() to spawn a new sandbox from the snapshot. The new sandbox starts with the exact filesystem and memory state captured in the snapshot.

JavaScript & TypeScript

import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const snapshot = await sandbox.createSnapshot()

// Create a new sandbox from the snapshot
const newSandbox = await Sandbox.create(snapshot.snapshotId)

List snapshots

You can list all snapshots. The method returns a paginator for iterating through results.

JavaScript & TypeScript

import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const paginator = Sandbox.listSnapshots()

const snapshots = []
while (paginator.hasNext) {
  const items = await paginator.nextItems()
  snapshots.push(...items)
}

Filter by sandbox

You can filter snapshots created from a specific sandbox.

JavaScript & TypeScript

import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

const paginator = Sandbox.listSnapshots({ sandboxId: 'your-sandbox-id' })
const snapshots = await paginator.nextItems()

Delete a snapshot

JavaScript & TypeScript

import { Sandbox } from 'e2b'

// Returns true if deleted, false if the snapshot was not found
const deleted = await Sandbox.deleteSnapshot(snapshot.snapshotId)

Snapshots vs. Templates

Both snapshots and templates create reusable starting points for sandboxes, but they solve different problems.

	Templates	Snapshots
Defined by	Declarative code (Template builder)	Capturing a running sandbox
Reproducibility	Same definition produces the same sandbox every time	Captures whatever state exists at that moment
Best for	Repeatable base environments	Checkpointing, rollback, forking runtime state

Use templates when every sandbox should start from an identical, known state — pre-installed tools, fixed configurations, consistent environments. Use snapshots when you need to capture or fork live runtime state that depends on what happened during execution.

Use cases

• Checkpointing agent work — an AI agent has loaded data and produced partial results in memory. Snapshot it so you can resume or fork from that point later.
• Rollback points — snapshot before a risky or expensive operation (running untrusted code, applying a migration, refactoring a web app). If it fails, rollback - spawn a fresh sandbox from the snapshot before the operation happened.
• Forking workflows — spawn multiple sandboxes from the same snapshot to explore different approaches in parallel.
• Cached sandboxes — avoid repeating expensive setup by snapshotting a sandbox that has already loaded a large dataset or started a long-running process.
• Sharing state — one user or agent configures an environment interactively, snapshots it, and others start from that exact state.