How to Map a Network Drive on Windows 11

If you usually use a networked push (or “share”) with Home windows 11, you can map it to a drive letter in File Explorer to make it appear much more like a nearby drive and quickly entry it in the foreseeable future. Here’s how to do it.

Initial, open up File Explorer. If you really do not have a shortcut to File Explorer in your taskbar, right-click on the Commence button and decide on “File Explorer.”

In a File Explorer window, simply click the ellipses button (three dots) in the toolbar, then find “Map Community Drive” in the menu that appears.

In the “Map Community Drive” window, click on the “Drive” fall-down menu and find a push letter that you will assign to the network travel. It can be any letter in the listing, depending on your personal desire.

In the “Folder” discipline, enter the community product and share title. If you really do not don’t forget it, click on “Browse” to see out there gadgets on your regional network.

If you want Home windows to generally reconnect to this drive each individual time you indicator in, examine the box beside “Reconnect at indication-in.” And if you want to join with qualifications (username and password) other than the kinds connected to your present-day Windows account, test “Connect Applying Distinctive Qualifications.”

When you are completed, click on “Finish.”

After clicking “Finish,” Windows 11 will attempt to hook up to the network travel. If your default qualifications are unsuccessful, or if you checked “Connect Working with Distinct Credentials” in the previous move, you will see a “Windows Security” window where you can enter the person title and password required to access the push.

If you want Home windows to often bear in mind this person name and password for the generate (so you never have to enter them yet again), look at “Remember My Credentials.” When you are performed, simply click “OK.”

Windows 11 will hook up to the travel and map it to the push letter you picked. If you open File Explorer and seem at “This Computer system,” you’ll see the mapped travel outlined beneath “Network Places.”

The mapped generate will also appear in the File Explorer sidebar under “Network.”

Anytime you open up the mapped generate (if you have go through and write obtain), you can use it just about just like a nearby generate related to your machine. But maintain in brain that it will possibly be slower than your neighborhood drives for the reason that information is remaining transferred to and from a network in its place of as a result of a nearby link like USB or SATA.

Relevant: NVMe vs. SATA: Which SSD Engineering Is Speedier?

How to Disconnect a Mapped Network Drive

To disconnect a mapped network generate, initial open File Explorer. In the toolbar of any File Explorer window, click on the ellipses button (3 dots) and pick “Disconnect Network Travel.”

In the “Disconnect Network Drives” window that appears, select the drive you’d like to disconnect, then click “OK.”

Alternately, you can find the mapped generate in File Explorer, then suitable-simply click it. Find “Show Additional Options” in the initial menu that seems, then “Disconnect” in the second menu.

Right after that, the drive will be disconnected and no extended mapped. It will also free up the previously reserved travel letter utilised by the mapped generate. Delighted networking!

Connected: How to Work With Community Drives & Network Places