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How to Connect USB Devices to macOS Mojave on VMware

Connect USB Devices to macOS Mojave on VMware

Connect USB Devices to macOS Mojave on VMware

With installing Mojave on virtual machine, you have a lot of new features to go with. One of the most useful features that you probably want is to try connecting your devices especially your iOS devices that are compatible with the Mac incuding your iPhone, iPad, and whatever iOS devices you have. In this case, you may want to do many things which include updating, resetting, backing up, transferring data from the virtual machine to the iPhone or vice versa and more. How to Connect USB Devices to macOS Mojave on VMware.

With that, while you are running Mojave, connecting your iPhone (you assume), is as simple as plugging in your portable device into Mojave or other virtual machines which is supposed to pop up, like every other computer. When it didn’t, you may have struggled a bit and maybe doubted if somethings wrong with your computer which is definitely not the case. The thing is, there’s nothing wrong with your installation neither your computer or operating system, perhaps, there’s a catch for it. And that’s not everybody knows about. Just like you, there are many users who are stuck in with this issue which is really disturbing. Here’s how to appropriately connect and fix things up. How to Connect USB Devices to macOS Mojave on VMware.
It’s worth knowing that these instructions will help and work connecting USB devices with every virtual machine including Mojave.

Connect USB Devices to macOS Mojave

Connecting your devices has been a simple thing of just plugging in your device which is quite easy. But that might not work all the time at least here. Thankfully, VMware allows us setting up connect USB devices and do more than that. So let’s get started.

Start by opening VMware and editing your virtual machine settings.

Edit Your Virtual Machine Settings

From the Virtual Machine Settings, select the USB Controller and check Show All USB input devices and Share Bluetooth one then Ok.

Virtual Machine Settings

Now power on the virtual machine and once you are signed in, plug in and connect your USB device via cable. For this example, I’ll be using a simple USB device, so the process is the same for other devices. As you plugged it into the PC, you will quickly notice that the device has connected to your computer, not in the virtual machine like the shot.

This PC

Next, from the virtual machine, go to VM > Removable devices > Select Your Device Name > Connect (Disconnect from host). The USB device will be now disconnected from the host which is your computer and will be connected to the guest which is the virtual machine.

Connect Device to Guest

After that, you’ll see the USB portable drive on your macOS desktop screen.

USB Drive

If it doesn’t appear on the screen don’t worry, you may need to reset it to make it compatible with macOS and Windows. To reset, open Spotlight by clicking at the top right corner at the search icon.

Open Spotlight

Type Disk Utility and hit Enter.

Spotlight – Disk Utility

The next screen will show the erase options available for you. Simply, choose your device from the left menu and click on Erase from top and choose MS-DOS (FAT) for the format then press Erase.

Disk Utility

When the reset finished, click Done.

USB Drive Erased

With that done, your USB device is available and ready to use. The USB Drive will be now accessible on the Desktop. Also, it will appear in the virtual machine toolbar menu.
It’s important to know that the device is connected to the guest and will not be available to work on the host until the virtual machine releases it.

USB Drive

However, you can add up to 20 USB devices to a virtual machine. But it will only work with one USB 3.0 device operating at superspeed to a virtual machine at a time.

Connect iPhone to macOS Mojave on VMware

If you have an iPhone which you would like to connect to the virtual machine and work with it, here’s how to do it.

So your first step is to connect your iPhone to your computer through cable. A USB detected dialog box will appear on the virtual machine stating where to connect the device. Select the second option that is Connect to a virtual machine and choose your virtual machine from the drop-down list by clicking on it and click OK.

New USB Device Detected

After you select the virtual machine, you will see your device appear on the screen.

My iPhone

As your iPhone has connected, from now on, you can transfer files from iTunes or do whatever you have in mind.

Remove USB Devices from macOS Mojave

You can remove USB devices from a virtual machine when the devices are no longer needed. When you disconnect a USB device from a virtual machine, the device is released from the virtual machine to the client computer which you can use it from your computer after that.

To eject the USB device from the guest operating system, right click on the device and click eject. Before you disconnect a device to a virtual machine, make sure the device is not really in use on the client computer. This is important.

Eject Device

In order to completely release this device, navigate to VM > Removable Devices > Your Device Name > Disconnect (Connect to host)

Disconnect Device

This will entirely kick out the USB device from the virtual machine (guest), which will be connected to your computer (host) with it’s files.

With all that done, if you connect your USB device and the virtual machine didn’t connect, you can install VMware Tools or reinstall if you have installed before and change the USB version to older one like USB 2.0. It will likely work.

Now that you have known this, you can now add the USB device to the virtual machine. If there is something important which is not mentioned here, let me know.

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