How to Map Network Drive on Windows and Mac

104

This guide shows you how to Map Network Drive on Windows and Mac. A network drive, also called a NAS (network attached storage) drive, is a storage device that links to a home or office network instead of your computer. Some of the benefits of this are obvious, like being able to view files from a phone, tablet, or computer without having to plug the drive in.

Other, maybe less clear benefits of NAS include automatic backups and the ability to copy data from one drive to another. By giving a drive letter to a place you use often, a mapped network drive can save you time. It might sound complicated to play around with networks and drive letters, but the process is quick, easy, and a great way to save time and be more productive.

How to Map Network Drive on Windows

• Open the Windows Start Menu and click File Explorer.  
• When File Explorer opens, click This PC.
• Select Computer at the top, and then Map Network Drive.
• When the Map Network Drive wizard opens, select the drive letter you want to use for the mapping. Click Browse and select the location you want to map.
• In the Browse window, select the computer and the shared folder you want to map to. When you are done, click OK.
• If you want Windows 11/10 to reconnect to this drive at each login, make sure you check Reconnect at Login. 
• When you”re done, click Finish.
• In some scenarios, as mentioned above, you will be asked to enter a username and password to connect to the network location. In the Username field, type your Texas State Net ID. For Password, enter your associated Net ID password. When you have typed things incorrectly, click OK. 
• In case you need to delete a previously created drive mapping, open the Computer window. All of the mapped drives will be available in the Network Location section, beneath your partitions and ROM drives.
• To delete a drive mapping toward a network location, right-click on it and select Disconnect. The deleted mapped drives will stop showing up in your Computer window. In order to restore them, you will have to create the mapping again.

How to Map Network Drive on Mac

Using Finder

Use the Finder app to map a network drive. This is the fastest way to do it. Using this method will set up a temporary link to your network drive. It won’t stay in place, though, if you restart your Mac.

Samba (SMB) network shares can be used on macOS. This is a common way for Windows, Mac, and (to a smaller extent) Linux to share files. Because it works on many different platforms, it’s likely that your network drive uses Samba to share files over the network. This guide will assume that’s the case.

• Open the Finder app from your Dock or Launchpad.
• In Finder, press Go > Connect to Server from the menu bar.
• Type smb:// followed by your NAS drive IP address/hostname and folder (eg. smb://192.168.0.2/ or smb://192.168.0.2/files or smb://nas-drive.local/files)
• Press Connect.
• If prompted, type in the correct username and password to connect to your network drive and press OK.

Automatically Connect to a Network Drive

You can join to a network share by following the steps above, but the share is only there for a short time. If you restart your Mac, it won’t immediately connect to the network share.

You’ll need to set up your Mac so that when you log in, it immediately connects to your network drive. This will make sure that you can always get to your network files in Finder (as long as you’re connected to the same network).

• Press the Apple logo > System Preferences from the menu bar.
• In System Preferences, select Users & Groups.
• Press the lock icon in the bottom-left and sign in, if required.
• Select your username on the right, then press Login Items.
• Press the add (+) icon.
• Select your network drive (or a folder within it) and press Add.
• Follow any additional on-screen instructions to complete the process.

FAQs