Access a Shared File on the same Network

Here is how you can Access a Shared file on Windows on the same Network

One of the most popular trends of the 21st century has been the move to wireless. Technologies like Bluetooth, WiFi, Wireless Charging have quickly annihilated the need for wires, allowing us to share, connect, and even charge our devices without any wires.

Recently, we covered a guide on how you can use Local Network Sharing to share files over the same network with different devices that are also connected to the same network, using WiFi (also works with LAN). The guide takes you through the steps of setting up your PC to allow it to share files over the same network and also helps you select certain files and/or folders that you want to share with other devices.

Here, in this guide, we will show you how you can use another PC (or even Mac) to access the shared file or folder using the network features.

Mapping a Network Drive

Once you have set up sharing on the host PC, you can move on to the other PC that you want to allow to access the files from the host PC. Here, first you will need to enable Network discovery by following the steps below,

  1. Open Control Panel.
  2. Click on Network and Internet.
  3. Click on Network and Sharing Center.
  4. From the left pane, click on Change advanced sharing settings.
  5. Under Network discovery, check the box for Turn on network discovery. This will allow devices on the same network to find your device.

Now, all you need to do is access the shared drive. For this, open File Explorer and click on Network from the left pane, as shown in the screenshot below,

Here, you should see the drive you shared, and you click on it to open it and select the files or folders that were shared from the host PC.