Heap dumps are displayed in the heap dump sub-tab in the main window. You can open binary format heap dump files (. hprof) saved on your local system or use Java VisualVM to take heap dumps of running applications.

Where is heap dump file located?

By default the heap dump is created in a file called java_pidpid. hprof in the working directory of the VM, as in the example above. You can specify an alternative file name or directory with the -XX:HeapDumpPath= option.

How do I get a heap dump?

Heap dump = memory contents for the JVM process output to a binary file. To take a thread dump on Windows, CTRL + BREAK if your JVM is the foreground process is the simplest way. If you have a unix-like shell on Windows like Cygwin or MobaXterm, you can use kill -3 {pid} like you can in Unix.