Effortlessly Share Folders and Exchange Data Between Physical and Virtual Machines in VMware Workstation

Many users install VMware virtual machines on their computers for testing Windows and various software. This article guides you on the fastest way to share data between your physical and virtual machines in VMware, allowing seamless copying and transferring of data for more efficient work on your virtual machine.

Step 1: Open VMware, start your virtual machine, then select VM -> Install VMware Tools...

Step 2: Access This PC (My Computer) within the virtual machine and open the VMware Tools drive to install VMware Tools.

Step 3: The installation window appears, click Next.

Step 4: Continue pressing Next once again.

Step 5: Press

Install to proceed with the installation.

Step 6: After the installation is complete, press Finish to conclude. When prompted, press Yes to restart the virtual machine.

After restarting the virtual machine, you can now transfer files from the host to the virtual machine by directly dragging and dropping files from the host to the virtual machine.

However, this file transfer method can be time-consuming and may not support large file sizes. To enhance professionalism, let's follow additional steps to create a shared folder for efficient file sharing between the host and virtual machine.

Step 1: Select VM -> Settings…

Step 2: In the new window, choose the Option tab, then select Shared Folders –> Always enabled -> Add…

Step 3: The installation window appears, click Next.

Step 4: Click Browse.., then choose the folder you want to use for file sharing on the host and continue by clicking Next.

Step 5: Check Enable this share, then click Finish to complete.

So, we have successfully created a shared folder between the host and the virtual machine. To open the shared folder on the virtual machine, go to Computer, navigate to the Network section, and open the vmware-host folder.

In the vmware-host directory, find the Shared folders folder. Open this folder to locate the shared folder you created. Now, any data you place in this folder on the host machine will be synchronized into the virtual machine and vice versa.

So, we have completed the steps to share data between the host and VMware virtual machine. We hope you find this article helpful. Best of luck to you all!