Oracle VirtualBox is arguably one of the best VM platforms. It has got all the bells and whistles and allows users to not just run one OS but multiple operating systems on one machine. One of its best features is the ability to drag and drop, with this, you won’t have to copy files to a USB flash drive and then paste it to the VM. In this post, we are going to see how you can enable Drag and Drop support in VirtualBox.
Enable Drag and Drop support in VirtualBox
Drag and Drop feature allows the user to copy a file from the guest computer and paste it to the host system and vice-versa. An alternative to this feature was copying a file to a USB drive and then pasting it to the other machine, which, as you may have guessed is not efficient.
If you want to Drag and Drop support in VirtualBox, follow the steps mentioned below.
- Open Oracle VirtualBox.
- Boot up your computer.
- Now, click on Devices > Insert Guest Additions CD image.
- Then, click on Run VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe. If nothing happens, just go to the 7th step.
- You will see a UAC prompt, click on the Yes button to continue.
- Now, you have to install the tool and reboot your machine.
- Once done, go to Device > Drag & Drop > Bidirectional.
If you want, you can also select Device > Drag & Drop > Host to Guest or Guest to Host.
This will enable the drag-and-drop feature, so, you can just drag a file from the VM to the host computer or vice-versa. It is extremely useful for someone who works on a guest and a host computer at the same time.
In case, you find yourself accidentally dragging and dropping files and this feature seems redundant to you, just navigate to Device > Drag & Drop > Disabled.
Enabling Drag and Drop is pretty simple, for the most part, one can just use this feature from the Device > Drag & Drop option, however, some users need to install the VBoxWindowsAdditions.exe file. We have aforementioned the complete guide to enable the drag-and-drop feature in Oracle VirtualBox.
Read: How to install VirtualBox Guest Additions on Windows
Once this feature is enabled, to use drag and drop in VirtualBox, you need to select a file from the host (or guest) computer, drag it to the other window, and then finally drop the file in the guest (or host) machine. This process basically integrates both physical and virtual machines enabling the user to move the files across both devices.
Also Read: How to fix VirtualBox USB not detected in Windows computer.
