Embodiments described herein involve improved management of snapshots of a file system. Embodiments include copying a first root node of a first snapshot to a second snapshot, the second snapshot referencing other nodes of the first snapshot. Embodiments further include incrementing reference counts of the other nodes of the first snapshot. Embodiments further include adding a storage address of the first root node to a list. Embodiments further include, each time that a copy on write operation is performed for a node of the other nodes, adding a storage address of the node to the list and decrementing the reference count of the node. Embodiments further include iterating through the list and, for each storage address in the list, decrementing the reference count of the node corresponding to the storage address and, if the reference count of the node reaches zero, freeing storage space at the storage address.