How to share a folder between Ubuntu inside VirtualBox (the guest) and Windows (the host)

readme.md

For example:

I have a folder on my Windows installation named C:/shared_stuff.

I have Ubuntu running inside VirtualBox on my Windows installation.

I want to access that folder inside Ubuntu under the path /mnt/shared_stuff (this could be anything you like; it doesn't have to match the name of the folder in Windows).

• Inside settings for the VM, go to Shared Folders.
• Add a Machine Folder (or check Make Permanent).
• Give a Folder Path of C:/shared_stuff.
• Give a Folder Name of stuff.
• Hit 'Okay'.
• sudo mkdir /mnt/shared_stuff
• sudo mount -t vboxsf stuff /mnt/shared_stuff

There you go. Now you have a folder on your Windows installation that you can access within your Ubuntu virtual machine.

For my use case, I am installing a project to that shared folder (installing it using Ubuntu) and editing the contents of that project in Windows.

You might need to chmod the /mnt/shared_stuff directory if you have mounting issues down the road.

I had some issues upon rebooting Linux where it wasn't mounting properly. chmodding shared_stuff and then re-mounting sudo mount -t vboxsf projects /mnt/shared_stuff did the trick.

Edge case: If you're using npm and are getting a symlink error, add --no-bin-links to your npm install commands. The error is because it's actually a Windows folder as I understand it.