Today we are going to discuss about how to copy file from your Windows 10 machine to Windows Sub-System for Linux.

Distribution Package of Windows Sub-System for Linux

First thing first, before you can even begin you have to understand where all the Linux files are placed in your Windows 10 machine. To avoid any accidental tampering Microsoft stores all you Linux files under the following hidden folder:

%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Packages

Here you can find your Linux distribution packages (distro) , double-click on the folder for your distribution, following is name of distribution package and folder name mapping:

Distribution Package Folder Name
Ubuntu CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc
openSUSE Leap 42 46932SUSE.openSUSELeap42.2_022rs5jcyhyac
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 46932SUSE.SUSELinuxEnterpriseServer12SP2_022rs5jcyhyac

For Ubuntu which I’m using, I’ll look for CanonicalGroupLimited.UbuntuonWindows_79rhkp1fndgsc and then navigate to folder navigate to .\LocalState\rootfs\ folder. This is the root file share where all you files are placed

Windows Sub-System for Linux

 

Copy Files

Method 1 – Manual Copy-Paste

You can simply move or copy-paste files inside one of these Linux directories, 

but the files won’t appear in you Windows Sub-system for Linux Bash Shell until you restart it.

Windows Sub-System for Linux

Method 2 – Windows System Drive as a Mount point

Windows Sub-System for Linux provides you access to the Windows 10 system drive by mounting the C:\ . On Linux  if you go to you root directory and list all directories, then you will notice a /mnt/c/ which is Windows 10 C:\ mounted on Linux

Windows Sub-System for Linux

Now simply use copy command ( cp ) to copy files over to your Linux Subsystem.

Video Tutorial

 

If you like this article read more similar articles under ‘N – Ways to’ category

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