How To VirtualBox

How to Install VirtualBox Extension Pack and Enable USB 3.0

You already know that VirtualBox is one of the best virtualization software out there. What you may not know is the VirtualBox Extension Pack. This is a combination of drivers that work to increase the functionality of the VirtualBox software. Among other things, this pack will help you use USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports with your virtual machine. This means that you can use devices attached to these ports and open them on the virtual machine created. There are many supported virtual machines including macOS Mojave to Windows 10 and all others in between, Android and Linux.

Other than USB 3.0 support, the virtualization software supports disk encryption, VirtualBox remote desktop protocol (RDP) and NVMe and PXE boot on Intel cards. The vRDP allows virtual machines to be controlled remotely even without network connection. Also supported is the ability to use the computer’s webcam with the virtual machine and AES encryption of data stored on the hard drive. The VirtualBox Extension Pack is cool but how do you install it? Here are the simple steps to follow:

1. Install VirtualBox Extension Pack

Step 1: Download the Extension Pack

You can only find the genuine VirtualBox Extension Pack on the VirtualBox download web page. Simple access the page and click on the latest version of the VirtualBox Extension Pack. The download process will start.

Download VM Extension Pack

Step 2: Start Installation

Open VirtualBox Extension Package file. There will be a pop-up message showing the features of the extension pack. Read through them and if they are what you need to proceed. Press the “install” button.

Install Orade VM VirtualBox Extension Pack

An installation wizard will guide you through the installation process. In order to continue, be sure to accept the license terms. It will take a minute or so for the installation to finish so be patient. Once the installation is over, the extension packages will be added to the “Extension” section of the Preferences window.

Note: For all functions of the extension package to be useful to you, ensure that you have the latest version of the VirtualBox virtualization software installed. You will be prompted to update just click on OK and you will have the latest version within a short time. You will be required to reboot the host operating system for the VirtualBox Extension pack to be effective. Do this before proceeding to enable USB 3.0, Mouse or Keyboard.

2. Enable USB 3.0 to fix Mouse and Keyboard not working problem on macOS

With this feature enabled, you will be able to use devices connected to USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports on your guest operating system. With faster data transfer speeds you will be happy to use these on your virtual machine for data transfer from various USB connected devices. You will be able to transfer photos, personal files and much more into your virtual machine even when the data is unavailable in the host system. To enable this:

1. Open the Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager and select the virtual machine for which you would like to enable the USB support or Mouse, Keyboard. At the top of the list of virtual machines, click on “Settings”. Two panes will be shown.

Open VirtualBox Manager

2. On the left pane, click on the button next to USB to select it. On the right panel, click on the USB 3.0 controller. 

Enable USB 3.0 in VirtualBox

Bottom Line

The VirtualBox Extension Pack is a good addition to any virtual machine regardless of the operating system running it. It has many useful features but what stand out is the ability to connect USB 3.0 and 2.0. You can use various devices to transfer data directly to or from your virtual machine. Using your virtual machine just got better! Install the VirtualBox Extension Pack and enjoy!

51 Comments

  • Hey man, I wanna thank you alot. If I hadn’t had found this, I would’ve been stuck. Your post helped me a lot and I can’t thank you enough. Keep up the great work man!!

  • Hi, great tutorial!
    I’m trying to connect my iphone to the virtualbox, but it doesn’t get recognized…
    I have installed 3.0 usb support etc.
    I read online that it only works with the usb 2.0 setting, but when I start the system with usb 2.0 my mouse and keyboard aren’t recognized, so I’m stuck right now.

    I hope you can help me!

  • Mouse and keyboard is working with Mac os mojave but am teying to connect my iphone not appear. Please help me in that.

  • Hi, great instructions. I managed to boot up the image and mouse pointer started to move after extension but… moving pointer is almost impossible — it makes big leaps on the screens even when moving slowly. Also typing is hard… when hitting character once it types probably ten of them. One click to backspace erase everything. Any idea what could be the reason?

  • John, when I made the machine of Mojave in Virtual Box the mouse pointer wasn’t showing. However, I was able to see the region/country selection screen. But after I installed the Extension Pack, the Black Screen in which the letters come is showing. And..it is stuck on the sentence ‘com.apple.AppleFSCompressionTypeDataless kmod start’.

    What do I do?

  • Great guide! I have an issue with inputs though. Keyboard and mouse become unusable after boot. Sometimes I can type, and sometimes a single key stroke is repeated multiple times. Same for the mouse, either it moves super slow or super fast or just fails to record mouse movements. My systems is pretty beefy with 32GB or ram, core i7, and VM installed in an SSD. I have both Vbox and Vbox extension 6.0 installed, as well as USB3 enabled, and tried all input devices (ps2, usb tablet, multipoint, etc.).

      • hi, John, I have the same problem with Dan, the RAM and CPU are actually 50% of my laptop, but the mouse still move slow, sometimes shows the multiple colors, I have installed the extension 6.0 also, what I can do to solve it, thanks!

  • when I select ” usb 3.0 “in the virtual machine gives the error:” instruction at… the memory could not be read.

  • Hello, sorry to bother you
    Could you help me install the extension pack? I could download the file but cannot install them.

    I use the latest version of VM box and extension pack but just open the machine and no pop-up thus, I can installed Mac OS but still cannot set my profile and so on.
    Thank you so much.

      • Thank you so much for your prompt reply.
        But the way you suggested above doesn’t work for me so I manually installed the extension pack.

        Just FYI:
        The version should be the same
        -My Machine is 5.22 and Extension pack is also 5.22, not 6.X.
        From the top
        1)Go to file
        2)select preference
        3)select ‘extensions’
        4)from the left side icon which allows users to add files, select extension pack which users already downloaded
        These above steps allowed me to install the extension pack.

        Thank you so much, John. Without your support, I could not download MacOS on my VM Box.

        Many thanks from Japan 😀

  • I’m not able to install the extension pack. The file just opens virtual box. Both are the same version. I’m not able to get my mouse running.

  • Hi guys! i had the same problem of mouse not responding and you know, those other kinda problems you guys encountered….But all i did to fix mine, was to download the latest version of virtualbox (6.0) and virtualbox extension pack 6.0. everything worked fine without adding any thing (mouse or keyboard) to the usb device filters. Mouse integration is automatically enabled. That means, you can freely play around with your mouse and keyboard on both the host and guest operating systems.

    And one more thing, THANKS JOHN FOR ALL THE INSTRUCTIONS. YOU DA BOSS!

  • Any solution to solve iPhone detection in Mac Os? It doesn’t work when I connect my iPhone in XCode, I see host connection notification all the time that means host take control of it. It’s working fine when I connect my external HDD to XCode but still It doesn’t detect my iPhone in Mac Os in virtual box and XCode as well

  • Hi John, this is awesome.
    I followed the instructions and this worked perfectly. The question I have is whether there is a way to make it verifiable?

    Thanks,

  • I just figured it out. Only need to select “USB 3.0 Controller”. Do NOT click the ‘Add’ button to add anything to the ‘USB Device Filters’. In that way, the Host is working.

  • I have the same issue. Mouse and keyboard are stuck in the VM. I had to turn off the VM in order to have mouse and keyboard working in the host. Any solutions?

  • I saw that is was possible to get Mojave running in VirtualBox and I did, but it’s deathly slow. I have a Ryzen 7 1800X with 16GB of memory. I assigned 8 CPUs to the VM and 8192MB of memory. I selected “minimal” for paravirtualization in VB 5.2.2 and left everything else as recommended. Of course I ran the vboxmanage commands before starting up the VM.

    I looked at the “Speeing up Mojave” link but since it’s a pretty fresh install, there’s no much to remove. I turned off the dynamic background but the cursor is still very slow and very laggy. I’m open to suggestions.

  • Hi just a big thanks for the instructions got it up and running on my Thinkpad S1 Yoga 12, on my very 1st try ever, great directions. Thank you again.

  • I have hot the same problem with others above. My VM run into the first step to start Mac OS but it seems not receive mouse to do next step

  • I’ve tried the above steps and have not been able to get the mouse and keyboard to work. When I add the mouse and keyboard as USB devices as indicated above the devices are completely taken over by the VM while running, I’m unable to use the Host Key to release the devices. And still, the mouse and keyboard don’t function. Any ideas?

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