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Misha Moroshko
Asked: 2011-10-28 19:55:31 +0800 CST

How to copy & paste from Ubuntu VirtualBox guest to Windows host?

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I am running VirtualBox 4.1.4 on my Windows 7 laptop, running an Ubuntu 11.10 guest.

I would like to copy text from Ubuntu's terminal and paste it into a file on the Windows host. This doesn't work for some reason.

Any ideas?

windows-7

11 Answers

  1. Go to VirtualMachine's Settings->General->Advanced->Shared Clipboard (Bidirectional)

    Reboot your virtual machine.

    for me it solved the problem (it was set on Disabled), I had some machines working some not, so i checked settings in working ones they had bidirectional clipboard. Dont know if this was upgrade issue or... just double check your shared clipboard options.

    Hope this helps someone.

    VirtualBox V 4.1.20

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  2. Best Answer

    Start your VM then install Virtualbox Guest Addition
    You can find this option under "Devices" on virtual box 4.2 or you can follow the explanations at How do I install Guest Additions in a VirtualBox VM?

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  3. I had to do four steps:

    1. Install Virtual Box extension pack in host
    2. Activate shared clipboard in menu
    3. Install Virtual Box guest extensions in ubuntu guest
      • sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11
    4. Reboot virtual machine
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  4. Did you install the required virtual box tools?? (the ones that you should install on guest operating system to gain smooth operation / interaction between the host and the guest)

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  5. You could use Pastebin.com if you have access to the Internet.

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  6. In VirtualBox 4.x:

    Start the Ubuntu instance, then in the VirtualBox menu at the top of the running instance window, Machine > Settings..., Advanced tab, change Clipboard Sharing to Bidirectional. It's set to Disabled by default for some reason - not clear on why I'd ever want that.

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  7. The summary of "Main OS and Virtual OS Integration":

    1. Install Vbox Guest Additions
    2. Enable Shared Clipboard
    3. Enable Drag'n'Drop
    4. Enable Shared Folder (optional)
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  8. I marked some text from firefox and tried to paste it into a terminal and it didn't work. I had guest additions installed, and also enabled bidirectional copy and paste and it still didn't work, but now I found the reason.

    Apparently when I marked the text in firefox, additional information is also stored like the font and style. The terminal can not interpret this, so it doesn't seem to accept it. I pasted the text into a plain text editor (notepad++ in my case) then selected the text again and copied it. Now when I pasted it into the terminal it worked.

    So this can also be a reason why copy&paste doesn't work, even if everything is correctly setup.

    Using VirtualBox 4.3.12 with Ubuntu 14.04 x64 as the guest.

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  9. in recent virtual box follow these instructions :

    enter image description here

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  10. For VMWare 15, I had to pause / shutdown the machine and go to VM -> Settings -> Options tab -> Guest Isolation

    From there you can check / uncheck Enable copy and pasteenter image description here

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