Sharing Files Between Windows and Your Intel-based Mac

You can set up shared folders in guest operating systems to share files between your Mac and your Windows and other virtual machines.

In the Sharing panel of a virtual machine's Settings window, you can select shared folders on your Mac to make available to the virtual machine. This feature requires VMware Tools.

You can mirror folders in your Windows virtual machine and in your Mac. Mirrored folders match key folders in the virtual machine with their corresponding Mac folders: Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Movies, Music, and Pictures.

To use shared folders, you must configure your virtual machine settings to enable shared folders and to specify which directories on your Mac are to be shared. The shared folders can be in your Mac file system or they can be network directories accessible from your Mac.

The guest operating system determines how shared folders appear. You can view shared folders in certain Windows and Linux guest operating systems. For a list, see Guest Operating Systems That Support Shared Folders. Before you can view shared folders, you must enable and configure the shared folders function.

Note: Do not open a file in a shared folder from more than one application at a time. For example, do not use an application on the Mac’s operating system and another application in the virtual machine’s operating system to open the same file at the same time. If one of the applications writes to the file, data might be corrupted.