Select Bidirectional in both drop-down boxes to enable two-way file sharing. There's also the default option, Disabled, which prevents your attempts to copy files to VirtualBox. You can choose from Host to Guest, Guest to Host, and Bidirectional.

You should now see the Shared Clipboard and Drag'n'Drop dropdown options.

In the window that pops up, click on General and then click on the Advanced tab.

Select your virtual machine, right-click and select Settings.

For example, copy and paste is best for sharing text and small files, such as copying code from a browser on your host PC into a terminal session in the guest OS.īelow, we'll look at sharing data using these three methods on virtual machines running on Oracle VirtualBox and VMware Workstation Player.

Drag and drop (also known as copy and paste)Įach of these methods is ideally suited for a specific type of data and expected use.The options for sharing data between a host PC and guest operating system running in a virtual machine are what you might expect: In very general terms, this lets you install an operating system on an existing OS, much like you would an app. How To Transfer Files From Virtual Machine To HostĪ virtual machine is a software environment that emulates the hardware required to install an operating system (OS).

Let's look at the different methods for transferring files between your virtual machine guest operating system and host PC using VirtualBox or VMware.

Oracle vm shared folder