How to share files and folder between Ubuntu 17.04 and Windows 10

Sharing content between Windows and Ubuntu are little bit complex. After installing Ubuntu in virtual box, sometimes it requires to share files or folder between windows and Ubuntu. But you can’t directly access files and folders between Windows and Ubuntu which is running in virtual box. You need to do some setting and execute commands for sharing files and folder between guest and host operating system.  How you can share content between Windows 10 (host) and Ubuntu 17.04 (guest) is shown in this article.

Create Share Folder

Create a new folder in windows that you want to share between windows and Ubuntu. Suppose the newly created folder name is Win-Ubuntu-Share. Now keep some files in this folder that you want to share.

Virtual Box Settings

Open Virtual Box and click Setting button to select share folder.

Click Shared Folders option to open share setting. Select Machine Folders and click on folder button to open Add Share dialog box.

Click the drop-down button of the Folder Path and select your share folder location by clicking Others folder option.

To make the folder permanent and automatically mount, check the options Auto-mount and Make Permanent. Click OK.

Again click OK to confirm the setting.

Now run your Ubuntu operating system. Select Devices menu and click on Insert Guest Additions CD image to install guest addition.

Click on Run button when the following dialog box appears.

You have to provide your root password to complete the task. Type root password and click Authenticate button.

When the installation will complete then the following information will appear in the terminal. Press Enter to exit.

Now open a terminal by pressing “Ctrl+Atl+T” and create a folder in Ubuntu which will be mounted with the previously selected windows folder. Suppose the folder name is Win_Share.

$ mkdir Win_Share

Set all permission for the newly created folder.

$ chmod 777 Win_Share

Run the following command to attach both folders.

$ sudo mount -t vboxsf  Win-Ubuntu-Share  Win_Share

Now if you open file explorer then you will find your previously created Ubuntu folder. Click on the folder. The content of this folder will be same as previously selected windows folder. Now if you create any change in this folder then it will also be modified for windows folders because both folders are now sharing the same location and same content.

Now create a new folder named ubuntu_share in this shared folder and create some files there.

Now go to windows and open the folder Win-Ubuntu-Share. You will find the newly created Ubuntu folder there.

In this way you can share any files and folder from windows to Ubuntu or vice versa. But there is a problem in this type sharing. That is, if you shutdown Ubuntu in virtual box and restart your machine then your shared folder will not be accessible and you have to repeat the previous steps again. To solve this problem, do not close Ubuntu by selecting power off the machine option and select Save the machine state to keep your all previous operations that you have done.