If Windows asks you to enable Network Discovery, then go ahead and do that. You should see the Mac computer listed there. One way is to simply open up Explorer and click on Network. There are a couple of ways you can do this. Now it’s time to try connect from your Windows machine.
If you don’t do this step, you’ll be asked to enter the username and password from your Windows machine, but it will just give you an error even if you type it in correctly. For whatever reason, OS X has to store your Mac user account password in a less secure way in order to connect from a Windows machine. In order to connect from a Windows machine, you have to check the box next to the user name and enter your password. The only other thing you have to do is click on the Options button and you’ll see a section at the bottom called Windows File Sharing. Under Users, you can see the standard permissions and edit them as you see fit. Click the little + (plus) button to share any folder on your hard drive. Under Shared Folders, the Public folder is shared out by default.
You’ll also see the IP address for the computer listed by the Options button. Click the Edit button to change the name. If you don’t, OS X will give it a short name automatically so that Windows can recognize it. Starting at the top, you can change your computer name to something less complex so Windows users have an easier time connecting. This one dialog pretty much contains all the settings and options for sharing. Now go ahead and check the File Sharing box under Service to enable file sharing. Now click on the Sharing icon, which is where we need to go to configure all the sharing options.īefore you get started, make sure to click on the little gold lock icon at the bottom left otherwise everything will be greyed out and you won’t be able to make any changes. Once they successfully enter the credentials, they will be presented with the shares.Īnd that’s all there is to it! File sharing made incredibly easy on macOS.First go to the System Preferences menu option by clicking on the Apple icon at the top left and then clicking on System Preferences. They will be prompted for the user credentials. Open that up and point the app to the address presented within the Sharing window. Regardless of operating system, chances are the user will connect via their desktop file manager. How this is done will depend upon the desktop platform the user will be connecting from. You will shown the address for which the user will connect to your share (in the form of smb://IP_ADDRESS where IP_ADDRESS is the actual IP address of your macOS machine). You will be prompted for the user password you created for that user.Ĭlick Done and you’ll be returned to the Sharing window. In the resulting window ( Figure B), select SMB, and then check the box next to the user you just created. You can select from:Īfter you’ve added the user (and given them the required permissions), click on the Options button. You now need to select the permissions for the new user. Don’t worry, the credentials are only good for the share and not the system. You will have to give that username and password to whomever requires access to the folder. Select the user and you will be prompted to create a password so the user can authenticate to your share. When that user has bee added to Contacts, click the + button under the Users pane in the Sharing window. Before you do that, you’ll want to add that user to your Contacts app (if the user doesn’t already exist). Once you’ve added the necessary folder, you’ll want to add a user that will have access to the folder. Navigate to the folder to be shared, select it, and click Add. To share out a specific folder, click the + button under the Shared Folders pane. In the resulting window, select File Sharing from the left navigation ( Figure A). To create the share click the Apple menu and then click System Preferences | Sharing. As you might expect, the process is handled completely through a GUI–so no commands need apply. I’m going to show you how this is done with macOS High Sierra on a MacBook Pro. The process for sharing out these folders is incredibly painless. It should come as no surprise that the ability to share folders is built into macOS. There are times when it is a necessity to share folders across a network–regardless of your platform. If you need to share folders to your network from macOS, Jack Wallen shows you how easy it is on High Sierra.
How to share folders to your network from macOS High Sierra