The most common way to share data with Windows and Mac includes Slack, Google Drive and good old’ flash drives. However, there is a better way if both computers are connected to the same WiFi network. In this article, we’ll set up shared folders on Mac and access it from a Windows computer. Let’s begin.

If you want to share the folders on Windows and access it from a Mac instead then you can follow the steps in this article on how to access Windows Shared folders on a Mac.

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Step 1. Enable File Sharing and Share a Folder on Mac

Setting up and Accessing Shared folders is relatively easy and you don’t need to install any additional hardware. However, it would be even more seamless if you assign these devices a static IP so that you don’t have to re-establish a connection whenever your router assigns a new one.

Open ‘System Preferences‘ on your Mac computer and click the Sharing icon.

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Click File Sharing and add all the folders you want to share by clicking the + button under Shared Folders as shown below.

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After this, you can add users and the level of control they’d have on the shared folders. If you’re unsure then leave it on the default and enable the Server. Click Options to open the dialog box.

Mac supports both SMB and AFP servers where the latter is built for Apple devices only. I plan on sharing the folder between both Mac and Windows so I checked both servers but you can enable just SMB and it would work just as fine.

Check the box next to “Share files and folders using SMB”. Check the box next to your account and click Done.

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Now, click the ‘File Sharing’ box on the left pane and then lock the settings by clicking on the padlock icon in the bottom left side of the window.

Before you exit this window, note down the smb server address and the name of the shared folder, we’ll need this to access the shared folder on Mac.

Read: How to Setup Shared Folders, Users, Permissions on WD NAS

Step 2. Access Shared folder On Windows

To access the shared folder on a Windows computer, we’ll map the drive to the computer. Open Windows Explorer and right-click on This PC icon.

Select ‘Map Network Drive’. Even though you can access the shared folder by running this command “IP-ADDRESS-OF-MAC” in the Run dialog box, we’ll map it so that it shows up in Windows Explorer and you don’t have to run the command every time you want to access the network drive.

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Now, you’d need the IP address we note down earlier while enabling the shared folder on Mac. Type ” YOUR-MAC-IPSHARED-FOLDER”. Click finish.

It would prompt you to enter the credentials and map the drive after successful authentication. Now, you can access the shared folder and files in it.

Final Words

1 note for mac. That was a quick way to set up sharing and accessing Mac shared folders from a Windows computer. It is a convenient and reliable way of accessing large files over the network when you don’t move around a lot. We use it for sharing Rendered video files that reduce the dependency on Google Drive and flash drives. Go ahead map the drives and let me know if you face any problems. You can comment down below or reach me on Twitter.

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Azure Files is Microsoft's easy-to-use cloud file system. Azure file shares can be mounted with the industry standard SMB 3 protocol by macOS High Sierra 10.13+. This article shows two different ways to mount an Azure file share on macOS: with the Finder UI and using the Terminal.

Prerequisites for mounting an Azure file share on macOS

• Storage account name: To mount an Azure file share, you will need the name of the storage account.

• Storage account key: To mount an Azure file share, you will need the primary (or secondary) storage key. SAS keys are not currently supported for mounting.

• Ensure port 445 is open: SMB communicates over TCP port 445. On your client machine (the Mac), check to make sure your firewall is not blocking TCP port 445.

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Mount an Azure file share via Finder

1. Open Finder: Finder is open on macOS by default, but you can ensure it is the currently selected application by clicking the 'macOS face icon' on the dock:
   

2. Select 'Connect to Server' from the 'Go' Menu: Using the UNC path from the prerequisites, convert the beginning double backslash () to smb:// and all other backslashes () to forwards slashes (/). Your link should look like the following:

3. Use the storage account name and storage account key when prompted for a username and password: When you click 'Connect' on the 'Connect to Server' dialog, you will be prompted for the username and password (This will be autopopulated with your macOS username). You have the option of placing the storage account name/storage account key in your macOS Keychain.

4. Use the Azure file share as desired: After substituting the share name and storage account key in for the username and password, the share will be mounted. You may use this as you would normally use a local folder/file share, including dragging and dropping files into the file share:

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Mount an Azure file share via Terminal

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1. Replace <storage-account-name>, <storage-account-key>, and <share-name> with the appropriate values for your environment.

2. Use the Azure file share as desired: The Azure file share will be mounted at the mount point specified by the previous command.

Next steps