Mac: Turn on File Sharing

By Xah Lee. Date: . Last updated: .

What's File Sharing on the Mac

When you have file sharing on machine x, other machines can access the files on machine x.

Turn on File Sharing on the Mac

On Mac, turn on file sharing. In System Settings, General, Sharing.

mac system settings general 2025-01-27 BmsHv
mac system settings general 2025-01-27 BmsHv
mac general sharing 2025-01-26 7rnqY-s999
mac general sharing 2025-01-26 7rnqY-s999

Get Your Mac Machine's Local IP Address

you need the mac's local ip address when you want to connect to it from another machine.

when you turn on file sharing, click the ⓘ button, it'll show you your Mac's local ip address, e.g. \\192.168.0.179\

or, find the local IP address on a Mac, open Terminal and type

  • ipconfig getifaddr en0 → get local ip address for Wi-Fi connection
  • ipconfig getifaddr en1 → get local ip address for wired connection

this is the address you need to type in, on Microsoft Windows machine, in the address field of File Explorer.

Old Mac System Preference

Mac system pref 2019-02-03 fsz76
Mac system pref 2019-02-03 fsz76

Windows: Access Shared Mac Files from Windows

How to Share Files, Windows, Mac, Android, Iphone