How do I enable the shared clipboard in VirtualBox?

Question

Where is the configuration option for sharing clipboards (copy & paste) between the host OS and the guest OS?

score 234 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 14 '16 at 01:05

234

With Guest Additions installed, the clipboard of your guest OS can be shared with your host OS.

Alt text

Highlight the Guest VBox in the VirtualBox console, open General -> Advanced. Here you can choose between various Shared Clipboard settings: Disabled, Guest to Host, Host to Guest or Bidirectional

edited Jun 14 '16 at 01:05

Peter Mortensen

12,190

answered Sep 16 '09 at 14:38

3

For anyone else who runs into this problem - I had option to enable Bidirectional clipboard with Windows8, before installing Guest Additions... but of course it wasn't working even though I selected the option. It started working normally after I went through process of installing Guest Additions. – nikib3ro Oct 04 '12 at 21:59
18

A restart of the Guest OS was required for me after installing the Guest Additions and setting the Shared Clipboard to Bidirectional to work. – legends2k Oct 05 '12 at 02:02
How about unix like operating systems? for example: FreeBSD. – pylover Jan 13 '13 at 21:50
20

I did Bidirectional, restarted the VM, but couldn't get it to work – amphibient Aug 19 '13 at 20:31
2

this fixed all kinds of issues (resolution. clipboard, etc) – chovy Oct 25 '13 at 04:51
3

Anyone know why it forces you to install Guest Additions on the guest even if all you want to do is copy ASCII from the host to the guest? Seems weird there wouldn't be a workaround for that case, since the VM is already forwarded keypress events. You'd just need to transparently inject host-to-guest keypress events. – Parthian Shot Aug 15 '14 at 15:31
1

@amphibient if you are using Ubuntu, then sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-dkms can help you (I took it here - http://askubuntu.com/a/578301) – Dmitry Aug 14 '15 at 14:08
This link helped me https://www.smarthomebeginner.com/install-virtualbox-guest-additions-on-ubuntu-debian/ – Hitesh Sahu Oct 26 '18 at 09:25
Worked for me. The gcc error got thrown, but it worked. – Ini Dec 05 '18 at 22:45
@amphibient See the answer that I just added – Anonymous Nov 01 '21 at 07:41
@ParthianShot Pasting often does not do the same thing as a bunch of key presses, so that functionality would be incorrect. Furthermore, the clipboard doesn't just have plain text. – Grant Gryczan Feb 25 '23 at 00:00

score 20 · Answer 2 · edited Nov 14 '12 at 00:25

20

Windows 7 64-bit host, Ubuntu 12.10 64-bit guest.

I enabled clipboard and drag and drop before installing Guest Additions. After installing Guest additions clipboard and drag n drop did not work. I disabled clipboard and drag n drop, uninstalled guest additions, rebooted, reinstalled guest additions - still failed.

To fix I did this:

Uninstalled guest additions and disabled clipboard and drag and drop. Then from the terminal I used

$ apt-get install make gcc linux-headers-$(uname -r)

Reinstall (should be error free), reboot, enable clipboard and drag and drop. Voilà!

edited Nov 14 '12 at 00:25

Indrek

24,424

answered Nov 13 '12 at 23:29

spryce

419
4
5

3

This should be the answer! it worked for me. – Ketan May 12 '14 at 16:03
1

Only solution which did the trick for me on Lubuntu. Many thanks! – Zar Sep 19 '14 at 17:44
Worked for me for Host Mac OSX -> Guest Ubuntu. – Vinay Feb 04 '16 at 20:43
Indeed, this is the solution that works for those who found this thread after already installing the guest additions and enabling the clipboard sharing. As a side note, you may also need to install dkms, and you don't need to reboot - just restart the window manager. – Valmiky Arquissandas Apr 01 '16 at 13:58
When you said uninstall guest additions, what guest additions do you install? Download from virtual box for the same version and run the script xxx.run, or install by using apt-get install virtualbox-xxx packages? Does that matter? – Robin Hsu Apr 24 '18 at 09:24
That linux-headers-$(uname -r) may have worked once upon a time but all it's accomplished in the four times I've tried to make this solution work is to cause apt to spit up an error that there is no such package. – John Smith Nov 08 '23 at 07:40

strpeter · Answer 3 · 2018-02-20T10:18:50.280

15

In VirtualBox Windows versions 5.1.8 until 5.2.6 (maybe older or future versions as well) it is accessible in two ways:

General settings
Active guest account window

If someone knows what other versions work as well, please add them as comments.

1st Version: General settings

Machine>Settings:

General>Advanced>Shared Clipboard

2nd Version: Active guest account window

Devices>Shared Clipboard>Desired option Available options: 1. Shared Clipboard>Disabled 2. Shared Clipboard>Host to Guest 3. Shared Clipboard>Guest to Host 4. Shared Clipboard>Bidirectional

edited Feb 20 '18 at 10:18

answered Dec 19 '16 at 09:16

strpeter

265

Tried both ways. Neither works. – John Smith Nov 08 '23 at 07:41

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 16 '09 at 14:40

4

Install Guest Additions for Windows XP. That will allow you to integrate the guest operating system with the host.

Some features:

Shared Folders - Meaning you can create folders that are accessible by both the guest and host systems.
Accelerated Video
Mouse Integration - You no longer need to capture the mouse. Focus follow your mouse.
Shared Clipboard

To install the Guest Additions, refer to the User Manual, Chapter 4.

answered Sep 16 '09 at 14:40

A Dwarf

19,091

The instructions in http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html#id2507352 will indeed get guest additions installed, but this does not allow the shared clipboard to be enabled. I've done this numerous times now, always with the result that the guest additions appear to add exactly zero functionality to my VM. – John Smith Nov 08 '23 at 07:42

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 04 '16 at 09:22

3

I had the same problem with clipboard not working on my host windows 10 , and ubuntu 16.06 guest. I tried all of the above to no avail. Finally, from the virtual box website I tried this command

If you suspect that something has gone wrong, check that your guest is set up correctly and try executing the command

sudo rcvboxadd setup

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#idm1948

Then after a reboot of the guest machine shared clipboard copy and paste finally worked correctly

answered Sep 04 '16 at 09:22

salza80

31

Ubuntu 16.06 sounds interesting – pulsejet Feb 01 '17 at 12:47
Worked for me using VirtualBox on macOS 10.14.2 using Ubuntu 18.04, may ask to install gcc make perl, do that and restart. – David Jan 19 '19 at 15:08

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 16 '17 at 08:55

3

At the Virtual Box base windows , just go to settings of your machine and in General you can change the settings.

answered Jan 16 '17 at 08:55

Tzvi Gregory Kaidanov

179

lyarwood · Answer 7 · 2009-09-16T14:46:47.213

2

In order to share your Host clipboard you will need the Guest Additions installed first.

As for the options for the clipboard, Right click the Guest VM within Virtual Box, Select Settings, In the General section select the Advanced tab.

edited Sep 16 '09 at 14:46

answered Sep 16 '09 at 14:40

lyarwood

1,878

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 01 '21 at 07:40

I struggled with this topic many years. Activating bidirectional drag'n'drop and installing the guest additions did not solve this issue, it was simply not working.

Finally, I figured out that I also have to install the "VM VirtualBox Extension Pack". It can be downloaded from the official virtualbox website.

This solved my problem.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Dec 27 '23 at 16:14

0

For my Kali linux VM it works immediately after setting the "Devices" > "Shared clipboard" > "Bidirectional"

answered Dec 27 '23 at 16:14

David Louda

101

How do I enable the shared clipboard in VirtualBox?

9 Answers9

1st Version: General settings

2nd Version: Active guest account window

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