- NAME
-
- gcloud preview compute instances stop - stop a virtual machine instance
- SYNOPSIS
-
-
gcloud preview compute instances stopINSTANCE_NAMES[INSTANCE_NAMES…] [--async] [--discard-local-ssd[=DISCARD_LOCAL_SSD]] [--zone=ZONE] [GCLOUD_WIDE_FLAG …]
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
(PREVIEW)gcloud preview compute instances stopis used to stop a Compute Engine virtual machine. Stopping a VM performs a clean shutdown, much like invoking the shutdown functionality of a workstation or laptop.If a VM has any attached Local SSD disks, you must use the
--discard-local-ssdflag to indicate whether or not the Local SSD data should be discarded. To stop the VM and preserve the Local SSD data when you stop the VM by setting--discard-local-ssd=False.To stop the VM and discard the Local SSD data, specify
--discard-local-ssd=True.Preserving the Local SSD disk data incurs costs and is subject to limitations. See https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/local-ssd#stop_instance for more information.
Stopping a VM which is already stopped will return without errors.
- EXAMPLES
- To stop an instance named
test-instance, run:gcloud preview compute instances stop test-instanceTo stop an instance named
test-instancethat has a Local SSD, run:gcloud preview compute instances stop test-instance --discard-local-ssd = TrueUsing '--discard-local-ssd' without a value defaults to True.
- POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS
-
-
INSTANCE_NAMES[INSTANCE_NAMES…] - Names of the instances to operate on. For details on valid instance names, refer to the criteria documented under the field 'name' at: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/reference/rest/v1/instances
-
- FLAGS
-
-
--async - Return immediately, without waiting for the operation in progress to complete.
-
--discard-local-ssd[=DISCARD_LOCAL_SSD] - If set to true, local SSD data is discarded.
-
--zone=ZONE - Zone of the instances to operate on. If not specified, you might be prompted to
select a zone (interactive mode only).
gcloudattempts to identify the appropriate zone by searching for resources in your currently active project. If the zone cannot be determined,gcloudprompts you for a selection with all available Google Cloud Platform zones.To avoid prompting when this flag is omitted, the user can set the
compute/zonegcloud config set compute/zone ZONEA list of zones can be fetched by running:
gcloud compute zones listTo unset the property, run:
gcloud config unset compute/zoneAlternatively, the zone can be stored in the environment variable
CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE
-
- GCLOUD WIDE FLAGS
- These flags are available to all commands:
--access-token-file,--account,--billing-project,--configuration,--flags-file,--flatten,--format,--help,--impersonate-service-account,--log-http,--project,--quiet,--trace-token,--user-output-enabled,--verbosity.Run
$ gcloud helpfor details. - NOTES
- This command is currently in DEVELOPER PREVIEW and may change without notice. If
this command fails with API permission errors despite specifying the correct
project, you might be trying to access an API with an invitation-only early
access allowlist. These variants are also available:
gcloud compute instances stopgcloud alpha compute instances stopgcloud beta compute instances stop
gcloud preview compute instances stop
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Last updated 2026-05-27 UTC.
