Map Drive Mac Os Sierra

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How to temporary or permanently map a network drive on a Mac?

Network drive is probably the best alternative for work or home environments where more than one computer is used to share files between them. However, macOS can't automatically detect network devices, unlike installed hardware. So you need to manually install and set them up, afterwards you will need to map a network drive on your Mac. Mapping a network is a process, where you reveal the path to a storage device attached to a network.

There are two methods how to map your network drive on Mac. First would be for temporary use, where you loose your path to network drive after restart. The second would be a permanent one, where your Mac will detect and mount the network drive every time it connect to the same network with attached storage. Speaking about business, network storage usually comes in the form of server storage, SANs (storage area network), NAS (network attached storage) and cloud services. However, home users also can use the same technologies, but SANs requires higher budget, so NAS or cloud storage would be more efficient.

Jul 02, 2020  Choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled) for any disk that you plan to use as a Time Machine backup disk or as a bootable installer. Will you be using the disk with another Mac? If the other Mac isn't using macOS High Sierra or later, choose Mac OS Extended (Journaled). Earlier versions of macOS don't work with APFS-formatted volumes. Feb 08, 2020  The problem is that on macOS, you can’t work with files saved on an NTFS drive unless you use a paid app like Paragon NTFS for Mac. How to Format an External Drive for Mac (from NTFS to Mac OS Extended) Note: The tutorial and screenshots below are based on macOS Sierra 10.12.5. They might be different if your Mac has a different version. Make sure that you select the format as OS X Extended (Journaled) or Mac OS Extended (Journaled) – depending on which version of OS X/macOS you are doing this from – and the scheme as GUID Partition Map. Once that is done, hit the Erase button to continue. Step 4: Once the flash drive has been successfully erased, launch the Terminal app.

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What is a network drive?

In case you're not an experienced computer user, you probably wonder what actually is a network drive, although what SAN and NAS is and what is their differences and possibilities?

A network drive is basically any type of storage connected to your router. In most frequent cases these are made up of computers, who's acting like servers to provide storage. A NAS device might be either an external hard drive (even usb flash key) connected to your home router, either assigned NAS device builded with own hardware and multiple drives. However, storage connects to you router and permits to authorized users to reach it. A SAN is basically a more complicated NAS, that can have numerous drives available in same network. These are frequently used in enterprise.

How to temporary map a network drive

Using this method your network drive will be connected and mounted for one time use, which means that it will disappear if you disconnect from network or simply reboot your Mac.

First open Mac 0010OS Finder app, that press Command and K buttons to launch Connect to Server window. Enter the route to the network drive you desire to map, for example: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click Connect.

Enter your log in details and click OK to mount the network drive. From now till reboot your network drive will be shown on your desktop and in the Finder's window sidebar. You can access the network share like a usual folder at this point.

Map

Map a network drive to Mac OS which automatically re-mounts after reconnection

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Using this method will leave you an openings to reboot your Mac and keep the network drive mapped as well as network reconnections. Your Mac will automatically remounts the drive, so you will be able to find your desktop shortcut whenever you connect to network.

Map Network Drive Mac Os High Sierra

First open Mac 0010OS Finder app, that press Command and K buttons to launch Connect to Server window. Enter the route to the network drive you desire to map, for example: smb://networkcomputer/networkshare and click Connect.

Enter your log in details and click OK to mount the network drive. Once your drive is mounted, you need to enable automatic mounts, so open System Preferences from the Apple menu. Click on Users and Groups (or Accounts in older OS) and choose Login Items. Click on add (+) button to add another login item, locate the network drive you have mounted before and click Add. From now on your network drive will be mapped and automatically remounted every time you reboot your Mac.

However, if you disconnect or loose connection to network where the mapped network drive is located, it won't reconnect automatically until you reconnect to the network and reboot your computer. What is more, shared drive will be accessible through Finder as usual folder.

Make network drive accessible from Mac desktop

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Good news that you may access your network drive through your Mac's desktop icon. Just follow several steps and create an icon which always appear on desktop when you connect to network.

First open Finder preferences from a menu bar in very top of you window, this appears when Finder is launched. Click the General tab and select the checkbox next to Connected Servers. This step ensure you to see the drives icon on your desktop, uncheck it and it will be only accessible in Finder window sidebars.

Mount a mapped network drive with a one click

There is a very useful additional step which allows you to create an alias of the mapped network drive, so you will be able to reconnect to the share with just one click. To create an alias, just right-click your mapped network drive icon on the desktop and select Make Alias. Once you've created alias just double-click it and your Mac reconnect to the network drive instantly. This is really useful, if you reconnecting to a network repeatedly.

Video Showing how to map a network drive on Mac: