Yeah I know that I can do that, but I want all the files to be available from the host without any rigamarole regardless of whether the guest OS is running. I'd be fine with the files being read-only on the host. I run many different operating systems and user interfaces, many of which don't support guest OS integration, and sometimes they sit unused for long enough periods of time that I forget whether they have any important files on them and where those files might be. I don't want to have to use every which file browser and random file transfer protocols that I have to worry about locking down, just so I can browse through them to back up anything important and then delete them. Although less satisfactory, the ability to mount any snapshot of the guest on the host in read-write mode while the guest isn't running would suffice, but would be more annoying than just storing them wide and open on the host to begin with.
[–] clickbot ago
What makes you think that the guest OS needs to be running for the host OS to make the files available?
[–] varialus ago (edited ago)
If you've got a command for mounting a VirtualBox dynamic disk image with snapshots from the host with read and write options enabled, I'd be happy to hear it.