| --- |
| page_title: Moving Resources - Terraform CLI |
| description: >- |
| Commands that allow you to manage the way that resources are tracked in state. |
| They are helpful when you move or change resources. |
| --- |
| |
| # Moving Resources |
| |
| Terraform's state associates each real-world object with a configured resource |
| at a specific [resource address](/cli/state/resource-addressing). This |
| is seamless when changing a resource's attributes, but Terraform will lose track |
| of a resource if you change its name, move it to a different module, or change |
| its provider. |
| |
| Usually that's fine: Terraform will destroy the old resource, replace it with a |
| new one (using the new resource address), and update any resources that rely on |
| its attributes. |
| |
| In cases where it's important to preserve an existing infrastructure object, you |
| can explicitly tell Terraform to associate it with a different configured |
| resource. |
| |
| For most cases we recommend using |
| [the Terraform language's refactoring features](/language/modules/develop/refactoring) |
| to document in your module exactly how the resource names have changed over |
| time. Terraform reacts to this information automatically during planning, so users of your module do not need to take any unusual extra steps. |
| |
| > **Hands On:** Try the [Use Configuration to Move Resources](https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/terraform/move-config) tutorial. |
| |
| There are some other situations which require explicit state modifications, |
| though. For those, consider the following Terraform commands: |
| |
| - [The `terraform state mv` command](/cli/commands/state/mv) changes |
| which resource address in your configuration is associated with a particular |
| real-world object. Use this to preserve an object when renaming a resource, or |
| when moving a resource into or out of a child module. |
| |
| - [The `terraform state rm` command](/cli/commands/state/rm) tells |
| Terraform to stop managing a resource as part of the current working directory |
| and workspace, _without_ destroying the corresponding real-world object. (You |
| can later use `terraform import` to start managing that resource in a |
| different workspace or a different Terraform configuration.) |
| |
| - [The `terraform state replace-provider` command](/cli/commands/state/replace-provider) |
| transfers existing resources to a new provider without requiring them to be |
| re-created. |
