A Lightsail snapshot is a complete copy of the machine's disk at a given moment: system, programs, configuration and data. It is the simplest way to sleep soundly before updating something, and the only reasonable way to recover a machine that has broken. In this guide you create one by hand, turn on the automatic ones and, most importantly, learn to restore it, because a copy you have never tried to restore is not a copy.
Everything is done from the Lightsail console, without touching the machine or installing anything inside it.
Before you start: what each thing means
- Lightsail
- The simple version of Amazon's servers: machines with a fixed monthly price, designed for people who do not want complications. It has its own console, separate from the rest of AWS.
- Snapshot
- A complete picture of the machine's disk at a given moment. It is used to go back to that moment or to create another identical machine.
- Restore
- Getting the machine back as it was when the snapshot was taken. In Lightsail this is done by creating a new machine from the copy.
- Static IP
- The fixed numeric address through which your machine is reached from the internet. If it is not static, it changes when you stop and start, and your website can no longer be found.
- Region
- The place in the world where your machines physically are (for example, Paris or Ireland). Copies are stored in the same region as the machine.
- GB
- Gigabyte, the unit in which disk size is measured. Snapshots are charged per GB stored per month.
Step by step
Open the machine in Lightsail
Open the Amazon Lightsail console (it is a separate console from the EC2 one, with its own menu). In the Instances tab click the name of the machine you want to copy. Note the region shown next to the name: the snapshot will be stored in that same region.
Open the Snapshots tab and create a manual one
Inside the machine, Snapshots tab. In the manual snapshots block click Create snapshot, give it a name that will still mean something to you in six months (for example
web-tienda-antes-php84-2026-10-26) and confirm. There is no need to stop the machine: Lightsail copies the disk while it is running.Creation takes from a few minutes to over an hour depending on the size of the disk. Meanwhile the machine keeps working normally. You can close the browser tab; the process carries on in AWS.
Turn on automatic snapshots
In the same tab, a little higher up, is the automatic snapshots switch. When you turn it on, Lightsail makes a copy every day at the time you choose (in UTC, not your local time) and keeps only the most recent ones: the old ones are deleted on their own. If you want to keep a specific copy forever, there is an option to "keep" that automatic snapshot, which turns it into a manual one.
Choose a quiet time, for example the early hours of the morning, so that the copy catches the data as still as possible.
Check that the copy is ready
When the snapshot goes from "Creating" to available, it appears with its size in GB. That size is what you will pay per month for snapshot storage, on top of the fixed price of the machine. If you pile up many manual ones, delete those that no longer make sense: it is the part of the Lightsail bill that grows the most without anyone noticing.
Restore: create a new machine from the snapshot
Here is the key point that confuses everyone: in Lightsail you do not "restore" onto the existing machine. What you do is create a new machine from the snapshot. Click the three dots on the snapshot and choose Create new instance. You can choose the availability zone and a plan equal to or bigger than the original (never smaller, because the disk would not fit). Give it a new name and create it.
In a few minutes you will have a second machine identical to the original at the moment of the copy, with a different public IP.
Move the static IP and check
If your original machine had a static IP (and it should, if it serves a website or email), go to Networking, open that IP and detach it from the old machine and attach it to the new one. The domain will keep pointing to the same IP, so the website works again without touching DNS. Log in over SSH or open the website and check that everything is as you expected.
When you are sure, stop the old machine (do not delete it yet) and leave it for a few days just in case. Then take one last snapshot of it and delete it: a stopped machine in Lightsail is still charged.
What can go wrong
The restored machine boots but the website does not respond
It is almost always the firewall: the new machine is born with Lightsail's default rules (SSH and HTTP), not the ones you had. Check the Networking tab of the new machine and reopen the ports you used, for example 443. The static IP and the firewall belong to the machine, not to the snapshot.
The option to create the machine in another region does not appear
Snapshots live in one region. To take the machine to another one, first copy the snapshot to that region (snapshot menu, "Copy to another region") and create the machine from the copy. This is also good security practice: a copy in another region survives a serious problem in the original data centre.
The restored database has half-written data
If the machine runs a database (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and the copy was taken in the middle of a write, some tables may be left inconsistent. For a copy you can trust before an important change, stop the database service for a minute, create the snapshot and start it again. The automatic ones in the early hours are usually enough for day-to-day use.
The bill goes up without having touched anything
Forgotten manual snapshots. Each one is charged per GB per month. Clean up and keep only those you would really want to restore some day.
In Simplio
In Simplio each machine has a Snapshot now button and a per-machine schedule (every day, every week, how many to keep) that can also copy the snapshots to another region automatically. If a scheduled copy is not made, it emails you. And the list of snapshots for each machine, with date and size, is always in view so you know what you have and what is surplus.
The same task, in AWS and in Simplio
| In the AWS console | In Simplio | |
|---|---|---|
| Make a copy | Lightsail console, open the machine, Snapshots tab, create: 4 clicks and wait | "Snapshot now" button on the machine: 1 click |
| Regular copies | Turn on automatic ones machine by machine; daily only and kept only for a few days | Per-machine schedule (daily, weekly, how many to keep) and a warning if one is not made |
| Restore | Create a new machine, move the static IP, redo the firewall: 3 screens, 15 minutes | Choose the copy and click "Create machine"; the IP and the firewall, from the same card |