Moving files between a Mac and a Windows PC doesn't have to mean uploading everything to the cloud, emailing attachments to yourself, or relying on third-party file transfer apps. In this episode of the AppleVis Podcast, Tyler demonstrates how to use Server Message Block (SMB) file sharing to connect a Mac directly to a Windows PC over a local network, allowing you to browse, copy, and manage shared files using Finder.
Tyler begins on the Windows side, walking through the settings needed to make a PC discoverable and accessible on a trusted network. He explains the importance of selecting the Private network profile, enabling network discovery and file sharing, and configuring the folders you want to share. Along the way, he discusses sharing permissions and offers a practical alternative for people using passwordless Microsoft accounts: creating a separate local Windows account specifically for accessing shared folders.
With Windows configured, Tyler switches to his Mac and demonstrates how to locate the PC using Finder's Network browser, accessed with Command-Shift-K. Using VoiceOver throughout the demonstration, he shows how to connect as a registered user, enter the appropriate credentials, and navigate the shared Windows folders just as you would other locations in Finder. He also explains the convenience of saving credentials in your Mac's Keychain, along with the security considerations worth keeping in mind.
Once connected, Tyler explores his Windows user folder, demonstrates accessing the Downloads folder, and shows how changes made from the Mac are immediately reflected on the PC. He highlights an important distinction when deleting files from a network share: unlike ordinary file deletion, items may be removed immediately rather than moved to the Trash or Recycle Bin. The walkthrough concludes with a demonstration of safely disconnecting from the Windows PC using Finder's Eject command.
Whether you regularly switch between macOS and Windows, need to transfer large files, or simply want a convenient way to access files across your computers without relying on cloud storage, this episode offers a practical introduction to SMB sharing. With VoiceOver and Windows screen reader feedback included throughout, the demonstration is particularly useful for blind and low-vision users looking to make file management across platforms more accessible.
Thinking About Giving It a Try?
If you have both a Mac and a Windows PC, SMB file sharing is a useful feature worth exploring. It's built into macOS and Windows, requires no additional software or subscription, and lets you work with files across both computers over your local network. Once everything is configured, Finder provides a familiar way to access your Windows files, including when navigating with VoiceOver.
Learn More
- Apple Support: Connect to a Windows Computer from a Mac
- Apple Support: Connect Your Mac to Shared Computers and Servers
- Microsoft Support: File Sharing Over a Network in Windows
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.
Tyler: Hey AppleVizers, Tyler here, with a demonstration and walkthrough of connecting your Mac to your Windows PC to Share files. Using the Server Message Block SMB protocol, you can connect your Mac to your Windows PC and access shared locations as if they were local folders on your Mac. While it is technically possible to connect in the other direction from your Windows PC to your Mac, the process to set it up is a bit more involved, in my experience less reliable, and it may be less secure in that in order to make your Mac discoverable to your PC, your account password must be stored in a less secure manner than what it is stored with by default, as in weaker grade of encryption, which doesn't make you inherently vulnerable in of itself, but it does widen your available attack surface in the event of a data breach. So for those reasons, I'll be demonstrating connecting my Mac to my Windows PC. Before you can do this, there are a few things you need to set up on the PC. You need to make sure it's discoverable on the network and make sure what you want to be accessible to SMB clients is being shared from the PC. Now, to do this, you first need to make sure you're using the private network profile and then enable network discovery and file and printer sharing for the private network profile. So this way when you connect to a trusted Wi-Fi network, which is what I'd recommend, I would not recommend having file sharing and network discovery on on a network that's not secure one that is not in your control. so I recommend having your network a private network so that anytime you connect to it, file and printer sharing will be on, but will be off for public networks, which is the default when you connect to another network. So to do that, you go into settings, network and internet and properties, which is what I'm going to demonstrate now on my PC. VoiceOver: Top left desk settings settings window tilers home one of tw split network person network and internet not network and internet network and internet network and internet network hero Control List Guproing. Properties for Wi-Fi Steven button. Steven. Show more settings button expand. Tyler: Okay, so I just hit properties for Steven, which is the name of my network. If I tab. VoiceOver: Wi-Fi network password connect automatically public network, recommended, radio button not checked your private network. Radio button checked your device is discoverable on the network. Select this if you need file sharing or use apps that communicate over this network. You should know and trust the people and devices on the network. Two of two. Tyler: Okay. So that's checked. It is set to the private network profile, which is what I want. This network is in my control and I want to use file sharing on it. So now I need to verify that file sharing is turned on for private networks. I'm gonna need to go back with alt left arrow. VoiceOver: Wi-Fi. Use random hardware at list. Wi-Fi grouping. Tyler: Hardware need to go advanced networking. VoiceOver: Manage known net show available connected net Wi-Fi toggle button. Press Wi-Fi one of one. Network and internet button Tyler: one of the network and internet Wi-Fi grouping Wi-Fi toggle button search box back button top network and VoiceOver: network and network hero control list data usage for list vpm air proxy dial ups advanced network settings advan,ced network settings, network adapters grouping. Tyler: Came a tab. VoiceOver: Ethernet 2 grouping, more settings grouping, advanced sharing settings grouping, change network discovery and sharing settings. Advanced sharing settings button more. Tyler: Advanced sharing settings. VoiceOver: Advanced sharing settings. Private networks. Current profile grouping. Show more settings button expanded. Tyler: Tab. VoiceOver: Network discovery toggle button. Pressed your PC can find and be found by other devices on the network. Tyler: Yep, network discovery that's pressed, so that's on. If I tap again. Okay, so that is on too. So that's all set up on the network level. Now you just need to make sure that what you want to share is being shared. I've already done this, but to go over it again, I'm gonna go into file explorer, go to my user folder, which is what I elected to share, go to properties, and then sharing, and I'm gonna demonstrate that now I'm gonna get out of settings. Desktop list Windows E for file explorer. VoiceOver: Home file extreme view get host document pictures music and of quick access pc expanded level music. Level one network collapse level expanded. Level three and users collapsed expanded level four public TLRS. Tyler: Okay, that's me. The properties cut alt. And because alt enter is sometimes not reliable in Windows Explorer, I'm gonna go to context menu and go properties. And go to the sharing tab. VoiceOver: Sharing property page shared network path. Advanced sharing grouping set custom permissions. Create multiple shares, and set other advanced sharing options. Advanced sharing button alt plus D. Tyler: So I'm gonna go to advanced sharing. There is a share button in this window, but I think it's a little confusing because I think that me refers to one drive sharing, which is not what I want to do. I want to do local network sharing? So I'm gonna hit advanced sharing. VoiceOver: Advanced sharing dialogue. Share this folder checkbox checked alt plus s. Tyler: Okay, share this folder that's checked. So if what you want to share is not checked, you just press space to check it. the other thing to keep in mind is what kind of account you're using. If you're using a Microsoft account, particularly one that is passwordless, you'll need to have a password in order to use it or create a separate local account and just give that local account full control permissions to the shared folder for your Windows Microsoft account. which is what I did. I didn't bother going and changing Windows Hello settings to turn off password list sign in and set a password for my Microsoft account on my PC and then having to enter my Microsoft credentials when I want to connect, I just created a separate local account and then gave that account access to my user folder. and I gave that full permissions basically to sum that up after creating the account in the properties for that folder, I went into the security tab, added the local account and gave it full control, and then also in this sharing, advanced sharing, I gave that full control as well. So both the file system permissions and sharing permissions, I gave full control to the local account. And if you have questions or want me to elaborate on that process, sound off in the comments and I will attempt to explain. I just don't want to get off off on too much of a tangent discussing Windows permissions and account creation to keep this demo moving along. So now that I've configured that, I'm gonna go out of this properties dialog. T L R S and out of file explorer. VoiceOver: Home desktop list. Tyler: So now I'm gonna demonstrate connecting to my PC from my Mac. So there are a couple ways to do this. You can choose connect to server from the Go menu and enter your IP address, which you'd find in network and internet settings it would show your IP address which if you're using IPv4 like I am it'd be something like 192.168 dot something dot something you could You can also browse the network browser. You can choose network from the go menu and finder, or you can just press Command Shift-K, which is what I'm going to do now. Oh, Finder. It's still locked up. Okay. I just unlocked my Mac, press Command Shift K. VoiceOver: Network window, Tyler's ThinkPad, PC. Tyler: Okay, Tyler's ThinkPad, PC, that's what I want. I'm gonna open that like any other item. VoiceOver: Oh, let's view, empty table. Tyler: Okay, so now it's empty because I'm not connected, so I'm gonna go interacting with the table, view shift up arrow, VoiceOver: connect as button. Tyler: So connect as. Hit VL left to connect VoiceOver: as and then hit that So it's open. Tyler: Make sure it's registered user. VoiceOver: Name, Tyler, contents. Tyler: Tyler, that's what I named my local account. VoiceOver: Password, password. Tyler: Now if you have a Microsoft account with the settings to the password list login turned off, you would enter your Microsoft credentials here. but I just prefer to use the local account so that's why I'm doing that. I don't feel like entering my Microsoft credentials each time. Another thing you can do if you VO write remember this password in my key keychain checkbox. Remember this password in my keychain. That way you won't have to enter it each time you connect. But do keep in mind that this is basically a gateway to your computer, from your computer to another one of your computers. So if someone has access if someone you know gets access to your Mac, they won't need to enter enter any password to get onto another computer if you do that. but either way, just hit default button. Connect. VoiceOver: Finder. Tyler's thinkpad window. Connect as button. Tyler: And if I view left. VoiceOver: Connected as Tyler. Tyler: Connected as Tyler. That's the name of my local account on the PC. And because I chose to share my user folder, it should show up here. VoiceOver: This view, this view, T L R and S D. Tyler: Alright, that's my my folder name, which is a truncated version of the the account username. All right, so I'm gonna open that up. VoiceOver: A list view, a list view table. Tyler: And here we are in my home folder. We have contacts. Or my documents. User folder. VoiceOver: Contacts. Documents. Downloads favorites. Nate searches, naf videos, naf virtual box VMs. Tyler: Okay, so those are all things. Now keep in mind that when you go in Windows in File Explorer on Windows, if you're in quick access, hit documents, that defaults to OneDrive documents and that may be a little confusing because if you put something in your documents folder and then go into documents what you see in the root of your user folder it might be different but you might not see because you need to go into one drive and then documents folder if you saved something say in documents using file explorers quick access. But anyway, I'm gonna go into the downloads folder. VoiceOver: They start save one drop music, links and favors, and downloads, October. A list view table. Tyler: There's a couple files here. VoiceOver: Defects login.x LSS. October 1st. The door workstation live 441 point.7.x86 unders. Score 64.SO. September 20th office set up. September 30th, virtual box seven point two point one six-174877-1.exe. Zoom installer full.exe. September 30th, 2000. Tyler: Okay, so those are all my full files in my downloads folder. Obviously, if I wanted to add something, I could just you know copy and paste anything from my Mac, drop it in this folder, like you know I was doing any other type of file management, and it would appear in the downloads folder on my PC. But I want to delete all these because I don't need them on my PC, so I'm just gonna select all command A. VoiceOver: Five O selected. Tyler: Delete. Okay, so it tells you that because you're on a network share, you're not moving things to the trash on your Mac or the recycle bin on your PC. You are deleting them immediately. And these are just things that I've downloaded that I don't need, so that's okay, but do keep that in mind. VoiceOver: Delete button. Tyler: So I'm gonna hit delete. And now nothing is there. And I can of course verify that if I go onto my PC, hit Windows E. VoiceOver: Home of Music, Tree View, Gallery 2, Tile Star Downloads. Tyler: Downloads. VoiceOver: Items view list. This folder is empty. Tyler: This folder is empty. So I've cleaned out the downloads folder and that is showing on the PC. So I'm going to get out. Desktop looks now. I'm back on the desktop. And once I'm done, I can disconnect my Mac from the PC. I can get back into the network folder. VoiceOver: Tyler's ThinkPad eject button. Tyler: And I could interact and hit the eject button, or I could just, because I'm focused on Tyler's ThinkPad and the network window, I'll just press Command E. VoiceOver: Eject Tyler's ThinkPad. LispView table, row one of one, Tyler's ThinkPad, PC. Tyler: And now if I go in to that, VoiceOver: a list view table, it will say connect at connecting. Connect at the SPU empty table. Tyler: Not connected, it's an empty table because I ejected it. So that's a demonstration and walkthrough of how to connect your Mac to your PC and how to share files. It is useful for certain things if say you don't want to use cloud services or you're working with particularly big files or for whatever reason you find you need to quickly and easily exchange files without going through third-party apps, cloud services, or you know other things that would make c cross-platform file exchange difficult. I hope you found this helpful. Peace.