Connect PC and Mac in the network - how it works
Connecting PC and Mac in the same network makes data exchange much easier. Even if the device types are usually not compatible - we will show you which settings the connection works with. The individual steps can also be found in our picture gallery.
Connect Mac and PC - Mac settings
The easiest way is to share a folder on your Mac with your Windows computer. The prerequisite is that both are in the same network. It doesn't matter whether you have connected the devices with WLAN or a network cable. The first thing to do is to find out the Mac's IP address:
- Open the system settings of OS X and select the item "Network" (there are pictures in the gallery). In the following window you can see how your Mac is connected to the network. This can be, for example, via Wi-Fi / airport or via Ethernet. If you click on your connection, you can see your network IP under "Status". You must now write this down.
- Now click on "More Options". There you will find the NetBios name of your Mac and the option to enter a workgroup under "WINS". If your Windows PC is in a work group, you should enter it there. You can find the working group in Windows under "Control Panel - System".
- Now go back to the main menu of your Mac's system settings and next select the "Shares" item. There you can control all the shares that you can set up on the Mac. File sharing is important here: Turn it on by checking the box.
- Now you can select the folder (s) you want to share with the PC under "Shared Folders". If you have not yet selected one or you want to create one, you can do this in the Finder. You can then add the new folder to your shares with the plus sign under "Shared Folders".
- Now all you have to do is determine who can access it. Click the folder you want to share. On the right side of the "Users" window you can see who has access to it. The default settings are "System administrator", "Administrators" and "Everyone".
- Use the plus sign under "User" to add your personal user account that you normally use to log in to your Mac. You can access this folder on your Windows PC if you enter your Mac login data there. Set yourself all the rights you will need. If you want to read and write, set this to the right of your user name. You can also restrict the rights for other users.
- One last but important step: The "Options" button hides the setting option that enables you to connect to Windows. Check the box "Share files and folders via SMB (Windows)".
Windows and Mac in a network - access the Mac share via Windows
Now that you have set up a share on the Mac and the Mac is in the same workgroup as your Windows PC, you can easily find both computers. Now get the IP of your Mac that you wrote down in the first step and log on to the Windows computer.
- Open My Computer / Explorer by clicking the Start button in Windows 7 and then "Computer".
- Now enter the IP of the Mac as a test in the address bar of the Explorer. Start with a double backslash, for example "\\ 192.168.10.7" (as seen in the gallery). Then confirm with Enter.
- Windows should now ask for your login information. They are the same ones that you entered on the Mac as a user for the share. Enter the data and confirm with OK.
- If everything went smoothly, you are now in the shared folder on your Mac and can write and read files there according to your rights.
Tips and troubleshooting
Depending on the security settings of your systems, problems can sometimes arise. If you just can't access your Mac, try the following solutions:
- Check whether your Windows computer can access the Mac over the network at all. Open the command line in Windows by searching for "cmd" under "Start". Open the offered cmd.exe and a black terminal window appears.
- Now try with "ping 192.168.10.7" (of course with the IP address of your Mac) whether you can ping your Mac. The ping command sends a test packet. If you get a "request timed out" three times, the PC cannot find the Mac on the network.
- Check the firewall settings of both computers if all settings on the Mac were correct but the computers cannot find each other on the network. A brief shutdown of the firewalls of both computers exposes the problem if the access suddenly works. Better turn the firewall back on.
- If that doesn't help either, both computers may not be on the same network. Professionals can use the router to check whether the Mac and PC are registered in the same address range and can see each other. You can determine in the DHCP settings whether both computers should have a fixed IP address. This makes sense, because then you don't always have to look it up.
- For added security, you can set up an extra user account on Mac only for folder sharing. You can do this in the system settings under "Users and Groups". There you can restrict the rights so that a hijacked account cannot immediately devastate the entire system. Of course, you must then also enter the account in the releases, as described in point 5 of the first paragraph.
You can read through the individual steps again in our picture gallery.
Depending on the operating system, the menu items and options mentioned may differ somewhat. If you don't always want to manually navigate to the shared Mac folder, you can set up a network drive. The article "Windows 7: Connect network drive" shows you how.
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1. Call up the connection and the IP in the home network under "System settings"> "Network", in this case Wi-Fi. Please write down the Mac's IP. Enter the working group of the PC under "Further options - WINS".
"Network" call up the connection and the IP in the home network, in this case Wi-Fi. Please write down the Mac's IP. Enter the working group of the PC under "Further Options - WINS". ">"Network" call up the connection and the IP in the home network, in this case Wi-Fi. Please write down the Mac's IP. Enter the working group of the PC under "Further options - WINS". "/>
2. You can look up the work group under "Control Panel"> "System" of the Windows PC.
"System" of the Windows PC, you can look up the work group. ">"System" of the Windows PC you can look up the work group. "/>
3. Select the desired folder under "Shares" and specify which user can access it. Under "Options" check the box "Share files and folders via SMB (Windows)".
4. Enter the IP in Explorer, preceded by "\\" and log in. You're already on the shared drive!
5. If you have any problems, first check your settings and ping the Mac from the Windows computer. The problems could be with firewall settings or with the router: Make sure that both computers can see each other in the network.
