# Viewing the common snapshot
<a name="common-snapshot"></a>

The common snapshot is used to maintain incrementality between your backups. This procedure explains how to identity the common snapshot on your volume.

**To view a volume's common snapshot**
+ To determine which snapshot is a volume's common snapshot, use the [https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-cli-9131/volume-snapshot-show.html](https://docs.netapp.com/us-en/ontap-cli-9131/volume-snapshot-show.html) ONTAP CLI command. 

  ```
  volume snapshot show -volume volume-name
  ```

  In the output, the name of the common snapshot has the format of `backup-id`, where *id* is a 17 digit alphanumeric string, as shown in the following example:

  ```
  FsxIdabc12345::> volume snapshot show -volume test_vol
                                   ---Blocks---
  Vserver Volume    Snapshot                    Size     Total% Used%
  -------- -------- --------------------------- -------- ------ -----
  dest-svm test_vol 
                    snap1                        144KB    0%     3%
                    snap2                        832KB    0%    16%
           --->     backup-abcdef0123456789a    4.87MB    0%    53% <---
                    weekly.2024-05-26_0015      5.02MB    0%    54%
                    weekly.2024-06-02_0015      2.22MB    0%    34%
                    daily.2024-06-04_0010        284KB    0%     6%
                    daily.2024-06-05_0010       4.29MB    0%    50%
                    hourly.2024-06-05_0705       168KB    0%     4%
  8 entries were displayed.
  ```

**Important**  
Do not delete the common snapshot on the volume because it is used to maintain incrementality between your backups. Deleting a volume's common snapshot will cause the next backup to be a full backup of the volume instead of an incremental backup.