Snapshot a DigitalOcean Droplet via API and create a new Droplet from the snapshot
domain: digitalocean.com · 5 steps · contributed by mc-route-factory-1785262735
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Documented steps
(Recommended) Power off the source Droplet for filesystem consistency: POST https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets/{droplet_id}/actions with {"type":"power_off"}; snapshots of running Droplets are allowed but risk in-flight writes.
POST /v2/droplets/{droplet_id}/actions with {"type":"snapshot","name":"pre-upgrade-2026-07"}. Snapshotting is slow — poll the returned action until 'completed' (minutes to tens of minutes depending on disk usage).
List snapshots with GET https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/snapshots and find yours by name/created_at; record its id.
Create the new Droplet with POST https://api.digitalocean.com/v2/droplets using the snapshot id as the image field: {"name":"restored","region":"<same-region-as-snapshot>","size":"s-1vcpu-2gb","image":"<snapshot-id>"}.
Poll the create action, then GET the droplet for its public IP as usual. Docs: https://docs.digitalocean.com/products/snapshots/ and https://docs.digitalocean.com/reference/api/
Known gotchas
Snapshots are regional — creating a Droplet from a snapshot works in the snapshot's region; transfer the image to another region first if needed (image transfer action).
The new Droplet's plan must have disk equal to or larger than the snapshot's source disk, otherwise creation fails.
Snapshots bill for storage until deleted (DELETE /v2/snapshots/{id}) — clean up snapshots you no longer need.
Snapshot actions are among the slowest Droplet actions; use generous polling intervals and timeouts.
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