Move AWS Amazon Lightsail Instance From One Account to Another ??

Question

I had a protracted conversation with Amazon's customer support a few months ago asking them to PLEASE help me move my Amazon Lightsail Windows service from one Amazon account to another Amazon account. After a numbers of days/weeks of to and from and various different parties and escalations, I got told, NO, THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE.  
  
Now I have been trying to figure out, in the tangled mess of 100s of AWS documents, what on earth I am supposed to do? I am so frustrated because I've read pages and pages of documentation but it seems simply moving from one account to another is a highly technical, complex, possibly error prone, and difficult and convoluted process. Requiring down time. Some of the various documents I've read are here:  
  
https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/ls/docs/en_us/articles/prepare-windows-based-instance-and-create-snapshot  
https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/ls/docs/en_us/articles/amazon-lightsail-exporting-snapshots  
https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/ls/docs/en_us/articles/amazon-lightsail-creating-ec2-instances-from-exported-snapshots  
https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/ls/docs/en_us/articles/amazon-lightsail-exporting-snapshots-to-amazon-ec2  
  
I don't know if Amazon is trying to punish me, make me some kind of documentation freak, or just hurt me.  
  
Anyway, is there someone that can give me 5 or 10 "easy" steps what on this earth I should be doing??  
  
For example:  
  
* Must I make a backup snapshot?  
* Then make another snapshot?  
* Then use SysDiff or something?  
* Then export? But where? To where? Which button?  
* Then how do I make an AMI?  
* How do I share an AMI?  
* How do I import an AMI into Lightsail?  
* Am I even supposed to use AMIs?  
  
Seriously guys, I'm just longing for something that allows me to perform a single action, but at this stage it looks like many many  hours will be spent and possibly it's going to be better to outsource this highly convoluted and technical action.  
  
Tagged as: death-by-amazon-documentation

TC · Answer

Sadly Lightsail is 100% throw-away. Once you build a server on it you've committed to a one-way street and the only sensible thing you can do with that server is terminate and delete it. You can't move it, anywhere, ever, unless you want to be sucked into the EC2 vortex, which for many, many of us is an over-engineered money vampire.

AWS aren't drowning in cash by accident ...

David G · Answer

Well, you can't transfer a LIGHTSAIL instance from one account to another.  It would be nice, but it's just not possible currently.  
  
As far as I can tell, the only thing you could do is export your LS instance to EC2 and transfer that instance using the instructions here: https://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/knowledge-center/account-transfer-ec2-instance.  Unfortunately, this means your instance is now in EC2 and you don't have the ease of use benefits of Lightsail.

David G · Answer

@MichaelZAtAWS:  
  
Please make sure the product managers are aware that this capability would be very nice to have, especially for those of us who are helping people deploy applications on Lightsail.

dwissing · Answer

It would be very helpful to be able to transfer a lightsail instance from one AWS account to another... please?

AWS-User-3138555 · Answer

Hi,   
  
Thanks for using Lightsail. Unfortunately Lightsail currently does not support transferring a instance to another account in Lightsail. Only option you have is to export Lightsail instance to EC2 following https://lightsail.aws.amazon.com/ls/docs/en_us/articles/amazon-lightsail-exporting-snapshots-to-amazon-ec2 which EC2 support such operations.   
  
Please feel free to let us know if any further help needed.

Move AWS Amazon Lightsail Instance From One Account to Another ??

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