Cloning your Raspberry Pi SD card takes only a few steps using a built-in app. This simple process can keep an exact copy of your RPi SD card safe as a backup, easily duplicate your device, or even increase (or shrink!) the size of the SD card used in your RPi.
What you will need
For this guide, we’re going to assume you have the following in place:
- A working Raspberry PI with Raspberry Pi OS using the GUI (graphical desktop, not the command-line only Raspberry Pi OS Lite)
- A second, blank SD card
- A SD card to USB adapter (examples)
Optional – Determine Size Required on New SD Card
If you are wanting to shrink to a smaller SD card, you need to verify the current space used by your Raspberry Pi to ensure the new card is large enough to hold all the data.
- Using your Raspberry Pi, open File Manager. Looking in the bottom-right of the opened File Manager window, notice the information provided for “Free Space”
2. Starting with the total size of your current, in use, SD card, subtract the amount given for “Free Space”. This will give the amount of space currently being used by the Pi. In this example, we are using a 16GB SD card. Subtracting 5.5GB of free space tells us we are currently using 10.5GB of space on the card.
This means in our example, we would not be able to shrink to an 8GB SD card since we need 10.5GB of space.
Steps to Clone your Raspberry Pi SD Card
1. Open Main Menu -> Accessories -> SD Card Copier
2. In the SD Card Copier window that opens, in the drop-down selection for “Copy From Device”, select your current SD card that is running Raspberry Pi OS. If you have not yet connected your SD card USB adapter and do not have any additional USB devices connection, you should only have a single choice available. Make a note of the device name selected, as you will need to re-select it again in a moment.
3. If you have not yet connected your SD card USB adapter, do so now
4. You will notice the SD Card Copier window refresh, and you need to now select the same device for “Copy From Device” you previously selected. Now you may also select the “Copy To Device” with the SD card USB adapter you connection, which should now also appear in the list.
5. Leave the box for “New Partition UUIDs” unchecked, and press Start
6. You will receive a friendly reminder that the 2nd SD card you are cloning onto will be deleted before it can be used. Press “Yes” to continue.
7. You will see status updates during the cloning process. Using a Raspberry Pi 3B+ device with a 16GB SD Card, our testing took about 8 minutes to complete.
8. Once completed, you will receive a “Copy Complete” notification. You could now test your cloned card by shutting down your Raspberry Pi, switching the SD cards, and batting up. You should see that your 2nd card is working just as the original.
