Connect a Mac to a Windows PC on your network

Being able to reach a computer and being reachable are separate. Each machine can be fine at one and broken at the other, which is why "they cannot see each other" is usually two problems that have to be diagnosed apart.

Test it in thirty seconds. You need the other machine's IP address, which you can find on the Mac under System Settings, Network, or on Windows with ipconfig.

From the Mac, in Terminal, replace the address with the Windows PC:

nc -vz 192.168.1.42 445

From Windows, in PowerShell, replace the address with the Mac:

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName 192.168.1.50 -Port 445

Succeeded means the network, the firewall and the file sharing service on that machine are all working, and your problem is credentials or the share itself. Failed or refused means sharing is off, the firewall is blocking, or the machine is not where you think it is.

Run both. The results tell you which half of this page to read, and it is common for one direction to succeed and the other to fail.

Do not wait for the Windows PC to appear in the Finder sidebar. Connecting directly always works if the Windows side is set up, and it tells you far more when it fails.

1. In Finder, press Command + K, or choose Go then Connect to Server.
2. Type smb://192.168.1.42, using the Windows PC's IP address.
3. Choose Registered User, not Guest, and enter a Windows account name and password.

Three things on the Windows side have to be true first, and all three are covered in detail on our Windows network errors page:

• The network profile is Private, not Public.
• File and printer sharing is turned on.
• The folder is actually shared, and the Windows account you are using has permission to it.

Use the IP address rather than the computer name for the first attempt. If the IP works and the name does not, the sharing is fine and you have a name resolution problem, which is a much smaller thing.

There was a problem connecting to the server

What it really means. The Mac never got an answer. This is the exact twin of Windows error 0x80070035, and the causes are the same, on the Windows side rather than the Mac side.

1. The Windows network profile is Public. Fix that first. It is the single most common cause and it is on the PC, not the Mac.
2. The Windows firewall is blocking inbound file sharing on port 445.
3. File and printer sharing is off on the PC.
4. Wrong address. Router restarts hand out different addresses, so an address that worked last month may now belong to a different device entirely.
5. Different subnets. A Mac on the guest Wi-Fi and a PC on the main network cannot reach each other at all, even in the same room.

If nc -vz ADDRESS 445 from the first section fails, this is the branch you are in and nothing on the Mac will fix it.

You do not have permission to access this server

What it really means. Good news, in a sense: you reached the Windows PC and it answered. This is a credentials problem, not a network one, so everything up to this point is working.

1. You connected as Guest. Modern Windows refuses guest logons by default, and has since Windows 10 version 1709. Click Connect As and choose Registered User.
2. The Windows account has no password. Windows will not accept a network logon for an account with a blank password. Set one on the PC.
3. The user name is in the wrong form. See the next section, which is its own trap.
4. The Mac is sending a stale saved password. See the keychain section.

The Microsoft account user name trap

This one wastes more time than any other single detail, and almost nothing tells you about it.

If the Windows PC signs in with a Microsoft account rather than a local account, the user name the Mac has to send is not what you see on the Windows login screen. It is one of these:

MicrosoftAccount\you@example.com
you@example.com

And the password is the Microsoft account password, never the PIN. A PIN is a local unlock method and does not exist as far as network sharing is concerned, which is why people who sign in with a four digit PIN every morning often have no idea what their actual password is.

For a local Windows account, either of these works:

PC-NAME\username
username

If you are not sure which kind of account it is, look on the Windows PC under Settings, Accounts. An email address under your name means a Microsoft account.

The Windows PC does not appear in the Finder sidebar

Very common, and much less serious than it looks: it means browsing is not working, and browsing is not the same as access.

Press Command + K and type smb:// with the IP address. If that opens the PC, then sharing works perfectly and only the discovery list is broken. Most people never need the sidebar.

If you want the sidebar to work, the Windows side has to be advertising itself:

• Network profile set to Private.
• Network discovery turned on in advanced sharing settings.
• The three Windows discovery services running: fdPHost, FDResPub and SSDPSRV. Our Windows network errors page has the exact commands.

In Finder, check that Settings, Sidebar has Bonjour computers or Connected servers enabled, since a hidden section looks identical to an empty network.

The Mac keeps using a password that no longer works

You changed the password on the Windows PC, the Mac still fails, and it never asks you for a new one. macOS saved the old credentials in the keychain and keeps sending them.

This is the Mac twin of Windows error 0x8007052E, and the fix has the same shape:

1. Open Keychain Access (in Applications, Utilities), or Passwords in System Settings on newer macOS.
2. Search for the PC name or its IP address.
3. Delete every network password entry for it.
4. Connect again. You should now be asked, and this time tick Remember this password in my keychain only once you know it works.

To drop the current connection entirely before retrying, in Terminal:

umount /Volumes/SHARENAME

The other direction, and it fails for completely different reasons. Two things must be true on the Mac, and the second one is the one everybody misses.

1. File Sharing must be on. System Settings, General, Sharing, then turn on File Sharing. On older macOS this is System Preferences, Sharing.
2. SMB must be enabled for the specific user account. Click the small Options button next to File Sharing, tick Share files and folders using SMB, and then tick the checkbox next to the user account you intend to connect as. You will be asked for that account's password.

That second step is not optional and not obvious. macOS stores an extra password form that Windows needs, and it only creates it when you tick that user's box and enter the password. Until then Windows is refused with a password error even though the password is perfectly correct.

Then from Windows, in File Explorer's address bar:

\\192.168.1.50

Use the Mac's short user name and its login password. The short name is shown in the Sharing pane under the File Sharing switch, as something like smb://192.168.1.50 with the account beneath it.

Windows cannot see the Mac in the Network folder at all

Usually not a fault, and it will probably never change, so it is worth understanding rather than fighting.

The two systems announce themselves in different languages. Windows discovery uses WS-Discovery, which is what those fdPHost and FDResPub services speak. macOS announces itself with Bonjour, which is mDNS. Windows does not consume Bonjour on its own, so a Mac can be perfectly reachable and still never appear in the Windows Network folder.

Type the address instead. \\192.168.1.50 in File Explorer connects normally. If it opens, nothing is broken; only the list was ever missing.

To make it convenient, map it as a drive: right click the folder once it opens, choose Map network drive, and tick Reconnect at sign-in. Give the Mac a fixed address in your router first, or the drive will point at the wrong device the next time addresses are handed out.

macOS Sequoia and the local network permission

From macOS 15 Sequoia, an app must be granted permission to use the local network before it can see or reach anything on it. The first time an app tries, macOS asks. If that prompt was dismissed, or appeared while you were doing something else, the app simply sees an empty network from then on, with no error and no second prompt.

This catches file managers, media players, remote control tools and our own app. It does not affect Finder itself, which is why smb:// can work while a third party app claims nothing is there.

Check it: System Settings, Privacy and Security, Local Network, and make sure the app is listed and enabled. An app that is missing from that list entirely has never asked, and reinstalling or relaunching it usually triggers the prompt again.

An old NAS or router disk that neither will open

Both modern macOS and modern Windows have dropped SMB1, the protocol those devices often speak, and both dropped it deliberately. On Windows you see 0x80070032; on the Mac you usually get the generic connection failure.

The fix belongs to the device: update its firmware, or enable SMB2 or SMB3 in its settings. Almost every NAS made in the last decade supports SMB2 and merely ships with it turned off.

1. Guest Wi-Fi, or two different networks. The most common cause of all and the least suspected. Guest networks isolate devices from each other by design. A Mac on 5GHz and a PC on 2.4GHz of the same router are usually fine; a Mac on "MyHome-Guest" and a PC on "MyHome" never are.
2. Router client isolation. Also called AP isolation or wireless isolation. It stops devices seeing each other while the internet works perfectly, and some routers ship with it on.
3. A VPN on either machine. Many VPN clients route all traffic, including local addresses, through the tunnel. Your own network then becomes unreachable while the internet is fine.
4. Firewalls on either side. Windows Defender or a third party suite on the PC; System Settings, Network, Firewall on the Mac.
5. Sleep. A sleeping machine is not reachable. On the Mac, System Settings, Displays, Advanced, and on a desktop Mac consider Prevent automatic sleeping. On Windows, check the power plan.

Everything above is SMB, the file sharing protocol both systems implement, each with its own decades of defaults and quirks. It works, and it is unforgiving of one wrong setting on either machine.

HearthWire runs on both Windows and macOS and connects them directly, without any of it. The machines find each other, and you get messages, file transfer, shared folders, voice calls and screen sharing between Mac and PC in both directions. There is no cloud, no account, and nothing to configure on the router.

Being honest about the limits, because this page is meant to be useful either way: it connects computers that both run HearthWire. It does not make a Mac open an old SMB1 NAS, and it will not change Windows guest policy or your saved passwords. For those, this page is how.

See what HearthWire does The Mac app