There are settings you can configure in virtual box to set up the copy/paste clipboard to be shared from host and guest machine (in either or both directions), so don’t lose hope. Just keep looking!
Thanks. I tried checking the box that allows copying and pasting files from the clipboard, but it still didn’t work.
Skill issue :p /j
Copy-pasting in and out of a vm requires integration from both the guest software and the host hypervisor. If either of them don’t, or use a different approach, you won’t have that functionality.
Isn’t this normal? If you copy a file to the clipboard, the file doesn’t really go into the RAM, but just a reference to it. If you paste it, the program you paste it into has to access the referenced file and read it to copy it. Now if the file is in a different VM or the host, the program in another VM or the host can’t access it. Therefore the reference in the clipboard makes no sense for it. It just can’t work like that.
A way around it would be complicated. The VM software could alter the clipboard and copy the file to a transitional storage, but then the clipboard can’t sync normal and it would be slow. Unlikely they add that feature.
I would suggest using RDP with file shares as a workaround.
It’s not normal when virtualbox has a specific option for enabling copying files in between machines.