Parallels Desktop Sharing Tools

General information about Parallels Desktop Sharing Tools

Parallels Desktop provides close integration between your macOS and Windows guest OS. To use this functionality, you should have Parallels Tools installed in the virtual machine and the Isolate Mac from Windows option disabled in the Security pane of the virtual machine configuration.

Shared Folders Tool

• Shared Folders Tool enables you to share Mac folders with the virtual machine and vice versa. With this tool, you can access your Mac folders from the virtual machine and virtual machine folders from macOS. You can also choose custom folders to share.

  Please follow the steps below to enable Shared Folders Tool:

  1. Open virtual machine window (Do not click Start).
  2. Open virtual machine configuration > switch to Options tab > Sharing.
  3. Set Share Folders to the desired value.
  4. Choose the Custom Folders if you need.

  If you want to share Windows folders with Mac check Access Windows folders from Mac and Mount virtual disks to Mac desktop in the Share Windows pane. Windows volumes will appear on the Mac Desktop.

Shared Profile Tool

• Shared Profile Tool enables you to share your Mac desktop, pictures, documents, downloads, music and videos with your virtual machine, which allows you to access them right from Windows.

  With this tools enabled the virtual machine's desktop will display the icons present on the macOS Desktop, and the My Documents folder will contain items stored in the Documents folder on your Mac. The other folders will behave in a similar way. It means that Windows home folders will be linked to Mac home folders.

  Warning: If you delete any macOS file from the Windows desktop when the macOS desktop sharing is enabled, you will not be able to find it in macOS Trash or Windows Recycle Bin. The file will be deleted from your computer permanently.

  Note: To enable the Shared Profile functionality, you should share all Mac disks or at least your Mac Home folder.

  Please follow the steps below to enable Shared Profile Tool:

  1. Open virtual machine window (Do not click Start).
  2. Open virtual machine configuration > switch to Options tab > Sharing.
  3. Tick Shared Profile checkbox and change Share Folders to All Disks / Home folder only.

Shared Cloud

• With Parallels Desktop you can easily share your favorite Cloud services like iCloud, PhotoStream, DropBox, GoogleDrive and SkyDrive between your Mac and Windows Virtual Machine without duplicating your data.

  To enable cloud sharing:

1. Open the virtual machine configuration > switch to Options tab > Sharing.

2. Put a tick on Share cloud folders with Windows.

Share Mac volumes

• Using Map Mac Volumes to Windows option you can set Parallels Desktop to automatically mount Mac storage devices and volumes to Windows. That way you can access the contents from both macOS and Windows.

  With this option enabled, the following items are automatically mounted to Windows:

  • Removable drives: External storage devices, such as USB hard disks and USB flash drives.
  • CD/DVD drives: CD and DVD drives or CD/DVD images (files most commonly ending in .dmg, .iso, and .img.).
  • Network folders: Folders shared over the network.

  To enable Map Mac Volumes to Windows option:

  1. Open virtual machine configuration > switch to Options tab > Sharing.
  2. Tick Map Mac Volumes to Windows checkbox.

Shared Applications Tool

• You can access macOS applications from within Windows and you can access Windows programs from macOS. For example, if you locate a file using the Open menu in a Windows program and decide you would rather open the file using a macOS application, you can. Shared Applications Tool enables you to specify default applications for certain types of files, so that you can open some types of files in Windows applications by default, and others - in macOS.

  Please follow the steps below to enable Shared Applications Tool:

  1. Open virtual machine window (Do not click Start).
  2. Open virtual machine configuration > switch to Options tab > Applications.
  3. Tick Share Windows applications with Mac and/or Share Mac applications with Windows.

Shared Internet Applications Tool

• Shared Internet Applications Tool enables you to specify default Internet browsers, including those installed in the virtual machine, for different types of Internet pages. For example, you may set the Internet pages to open in your default macOS Internet browser, and FTP pages to open in your virtual machine Internet browser.

  Please follow the steps below to configure Shared Internet Applications Tool:

  1. Open virtual machine window (Do not click Start).
  2. Open virtual machine configuration > switch to Options tab > Applications.
  3. Set Web Pages, Email to desired values.
  4. For deeper configuration use More Applications button.