---
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

OpenTofu's state associates each real-world object with a configured resource
at a specific [resource address](resource-addressing.mdx). This
is seamless when changing a resource's attributes, but OpenTofu 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: OpenTofu 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 OpenTofu to associate it with a different configured
resource.

For most cases we recommend using
[the OpenTofu language's refactoring features](../../language/modules/develop/refactoring.mdx)
to document in your module exactly how the resource names have changed over
time. OpenTofu reacts to this information automatically during planning, so users of your module do not need to take any unusual extra steps.

There are some other situations which require explicit state modifications,
though. For those, consider the following OpenTofu commands:

- [The `tofu state mv` command](../commands/state/mv.mdx) 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 `tofu state rm` command](../commands/state/rm.mdx) tells
  OpenTofu 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 `tofu import` to start managing that resource in a
  different workspace or a different OpenTofu configuration.)

- [The `tofu state replace-provider` command](../commands/state/replace-provider.mdx)
  transfers existing resources to a new provider without requiring them to be
  re-created.