Access shared Windows folders on Android phone

Windows has its built-in file sharing option via SMB for quite some time. You can turn on this option from the Windows Network and sharing center. Then open the File Explorer or Windows Explorer on your PC, right-click a folder, head to its Properties to share it in your local network. You can access the shared folders from Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android or other devices in the same LAN. Today, we will show you how to access a shared folder on Windows computer from Android mobile phone.

Note that

• You can’t access a shared Windows folder over the Internet though. Both devices have to be connected to the same Wi-Fi. So your mobile phone has to be connected to the same Wi-Fi instead of its mobile data.
• Most Android phones don’t have a built-in file manager app with the ability to connect to your SMB shares on your LAN. I will be using Mi File Manager for Android to connect Windows shared folders over the SMB protocol. So firstly install the free file manager app from previous linked page before we get started.

Connect Windows SMB shared folder from Android

Launch the Mi file explorer app on your mobile phone. Tap to open its side menu from the top left corner. See screenshot below.

Choose Remote from this main menu of the file explorer app by Xiaomi. Then tap on Add remote device. A pop-up dialog appears with LAN and FTP options. You can use this file manager app to connect local SMB shares and FTP servers from you mobile phone. Here we choose SMB in order to access Windows file sharing on our computer.

Once the LAN dialog opens, it will scan local SMB servers in your local network. Then select the Windows PC in the list, type in your computer username and password to connect to it.

After that, you can open the Windows shared folders and share files between your PC and mobile phone using this Xiaomi File Manager app. You can access files and documents wirelessly, directly play music and videos saved on your PC from your mobile device and so on.