I hid the menu bar in VirtualBox, how to show it again?

Question

In top menu bar, I accidentally selected to hide that top menu bar ("File", "Help", etc).

As the bar has disappeared, I now cannot access the option to show it again. Not very thought through in my opinion.

image description

How do I show it again? My version is 5.0.4r.

Which VirtualBox window are you referring to? Which software version are you running? — user, Feb 08 '17 at 12:29
@jcbermu that will go into Scaled Mode which will generally look worse... Also this will not show the menu again if you had previously explicitly hidden it. — red-o-alf, Mar 19 '23 at 09:32
@Redoman, RightCtrl + Home will provide you with the context menu to re-enable the menu bar. — mmortal03, Jul 29 '23 at 08:58

score 117 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 18 '20 at 10:18

117

You can access the menu while the VM is running by Right Control + Home (by default). It will pop up as a contextual menu through which you will be able to reactivate the display of the menu.

edited Aug 18 '20 at 10:18

Andrejs Cainikovs

2,850

answered Aug 05 '18 at 12:32

mercibe

1,171

4

This method is definitely the quickest. – NK1406 Nov 10 '19 at 20:50
2

for me by default it is not RightCtrl, but RightAlt+Home. Actually in status line it is shown at the very right. Also the modifier key can be set in VirtualBox Preferences / Input / Virtual Machine / Host Key Combination – avp Jan 18 '20 at 22:21
This worked for me, none of the other methods have. – Michael Elliott Apr 17 '20 at 07:05
1

Thank you, I don't need to waste my screen with menu bar anymore. – saeedgnu Nov 03 '20 at 14:24
What is the equivalent for MacOS? – Manuel Jordan Oct 13 '22 at 01:50
Good answer. Also works in Dec 2022 with 6.1.40 (on Windows). – AlainD Dec 20 '22 at 10:19

score 113 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 08 '17 at 12:39

113

Open virtual machine's settings, then User Interface page. Check this box:

answered Feb 08 '17 at 12:39

gronostaj

57,004

8

As a side note, if the manager is not open, then the settings can be accessed by the shortcut Host+S, where Host is by default the right control key. – NK1406 Nov 10 '19 at 20:57
2

This was not useful for me. I ended up pressing right ctrl + all the letters starting from left to right on the keyboard until I figured out one that changed the display mode. VirtualBox is such a piece of crap. – theMayer Mar 20 '20 at 13:11
2

@theMayer would you be so kind to say which which key? – mockingjay Apr 06 '20 at 13:56
Unfortunately this does not work (anymore) on macOS. – wedi May 20 '20 at 12:52
2

I have this box checked on Ubuntu and I still can't see the menu bar. I also can't see the bottom bar, and that is also checked. – Aaron Franke Jul 11 '20 at 18:54
@AaronFranke Is the VM in fullscreen mode? You can quit it with Host+F (Host key is right Ctrl by default). – gronostaj Jul 11 '20 at 19:26
3

I figured it out, if I press Host+C then it shows the menu bars again. – Aaron Franke Jul 11 '20 at 19:41
Thanks! I had to do this and also shutdown/restart my VM for it to work. Thanks! – Quang May 24 '23 at 05:09

score 19 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 14 '22 at 12:27

I had a similar problem where the menus & status bar were gone.

The Host + C fixed the issue. Why?

Looking at the list of hotkeys (From the menu: Input » Keyboard... » Keyboard Settings...), the Host + C is assigned to the Scaled Mode function. The feature that let you change the size of your guest window to whatever dimensions you'd like (it does not even have to be a standard 4:3 or 16:9). This is great, but the side effect is that the VirtualBox system removes the menu & status bar because these may not fit properly when you resize your window in that mode.

So hitting Host + C again fixes the issue because it gets you out of the Scaled Mode. Now they can be sure that the menu & status bar will fit your window as expected.

Note: by default the Host key is the Right Ctrl key. That means if you have the habit of using that Right Ctrl in your day to day usage (like editing a file), you could end up triggering a VirtualBox guest feature without knowing it... some of which could be a shutdown or reboot of the guest!

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 26 '18 at 09:35

Temporary removing of %USERPROFILE%/.VirtualBox folder with

mv %USERPROFILE%/.VirtualBox %USERPROFILE%/.VirtualBox_old

and starting a virtualbox from scratch allowed to solve the issue with the help of

hotkeys(Host+C & Host+Home, where Host=Right Ctrl)

from this tooltip

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 21 '22 at 04:22

Step 1: open the Vbox preferences for VMs

Step 2: find the host key. In the example below, it is Ctrl + Alt.

Step 3: find the scale shortcut. In the example below, it is Host + C. Which means Ctrl + Alt + C.

As a result, Ctrl + Alt + C will show the menu, if it had disappeared due to the scale mode.

score 1 · Answer 6 · edited Mar 19 '19 at 08:34

1

Just move the .VDI file out of the folder made by VirtualBox (otherwise you will delete it by mistake)
Go to the VirtualBox manager program and delete the profile made for the virtual operating system by right click on its icon and selecting delete all
Try to recreate the virtual box but this time use existing .vdi file and the rest just same.

edited Mar 19 '19 at 08:34

Glorfindel

4,099

answered Mar 19 '19 at 06:40

masoud Afrakhteh

31

1

Why would I do this instead of re-enabling the toolbar in settings? – gronostaj Jul 26 '19 at 07:06
3

Good last resort if you searched the internet and didn't find an easier solution! – saeedgnu Nov 03 '20 at 14:26
none of the Host+ worked for me , I had to do this – rearThing Aug 27 '22 at 16:59

I hid the menu bar in VirtualBox, how to show it again?

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