moving ubuntu + windows vmware from computer to external hard drive?

so basically ive been using ubuntu server and desktop + windows vmware on my mac for a few weeks now for school, but i've noticed that these two things have taken up a BUNCH of space on my computer. i'd like to move it to my hard drive so i can free up some space, but i'm not sure where to start. i've seen some options online on how to move them, but how do i know which is the easiest/least likely to screw me over?

i have a bunch of

thanks in advance (:

ps: i am dumb when it comes to computer stuff (very new to this whole thing!) so please make this as simple as possible lol

edit: yes, sorry for the confusion!! i am just as confused as u guys lol idk what im doing. so basically im taking a cyber security class, and we had to download MS-Edge-Win10 VMware Fusion (which is meant for mac, i think the windows one is called workspace?) + Ubuntu Server and Desktop v20.04.3, and i think? im running ubuntu in vmware. i have a 2019 macbook pro big sur 11.6. having the vm on my computer is taking up Way too much storage, so i'd like to move the virtual machine onto an external drive and run it off that!

edit 2: yes, so i wasnt able to figure it out through the way u told me, BUT i did just look up .vmdk through my files, and it's just in my downloads folder in a win10 vmware folder that also holds a .ovf and a .mf file also! additionally, i have a virtual machines folder under users that has all of the vmware + ubuntu bundles.

Solution 1:

As @Nmath already said, virtual machine running off external drive will be sloooow.

But if you really want to try this (you can return to VMs stored on your internal drive without problems), then just find in your VMWare settings, where the virtual machines files are stored.

Shut down all your VMs, copy contents of the aforementioned folder to some folder on your external drive, and change the setting in VMWare pointing to the new folder. That's it. You can now try to boot your virtual machines and they should work.

If you are satisfied with the result, you can delete the original folder. If not, shut down your VMs again and point VMWare back to the original folder.