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The builtin SD Card Copier tool can create copies smaller than the system sd card, so it can be used for cloning the system into smaller cards. Is there a similar tool (running on any os) for creating small image files from an rpi system sd card?

As far as I understand dd and bkup_rpimage are copying the full system drive. There is an option to compress it after dumping but it will still require the same size target sd card when restoring.

UPDATE: I found RonR-RPi-image-utils (more than 1 version) and PiShrink scripts that should be able to do this. Others suggested using rsync. So far I have tested PiShrink on an image created by Win32DiskImager and it seems to work well.

I wonder if the shrunk images produced by those methods are fail-safe as the SD Card Copier results.

ramiwi
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  • Search for resizing Linux partitions. – joan Jun 24 '22 at 16:59
  • If you search this site you will find a few examples of programs to create a small image of a Pi OS which can be used to make a new smaller image. – Milliways Jun 24 '22 at 23:12
  • @Milliways I havent found such programs but found some scripts and tutorials, not as simple as SD Card Copier (updated the question). – ramiwi Jun 25 '22 at 18:28
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    @ramiwi you seem to have found some - including mine. I don't know WHY you think these aren't programs. NOTE SD Card Copier is NOT fail-safe; ANY program which operates on an active image has some risk - this can be minimised by running on an system with minimal activity. – Milliways Jun 26 '22 at 01:56
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    NOTE most use `rsync` in the background (including Ron's). SD Card Copier does something similar as it implements file by file copy. You can also use `gparted` etc to modify images, but this properly refuses to modify an active partition. – Milliways Jun 26 '22 at 02:02

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