- So you need to transfer files
from your iPad to your computer,
but you forgot your USB drive or your USBC adapter,
or maybe you usually use Airdrop
and it's failing for some reason.
Maybe you need to transfer files to a Windows computer
or a NAS.
In today's quick tip,
we're going to look at how to connect to network drives
using iPad iOS.
Hey, I'm Jerry.
And when you use technology as much as we all do these days,
you can find things
that sometimes just don't always go as planned.
Trying to meet deadlines
or even ordering takeout can be super frustrating
when things just do not work.
When transferring files from iOS or iPad OS,
I often run into problems with USB drives or Airdrop.
So, having another solution to get things done is nice
if the others fail or it's not possible.
Let's take a look at the Files app
and we'll look at how we connect to network drive.
Inside the Files app for iOS and iPad OS,
you have a couple of different categories over here.
You have Locations, which is your local iPad storage
and your cloud storage for different apps
that you have connected.
If you have something besides iCloud Drive,
you might have Dropbox, or One Drive.
Below that you have Favorites,
so you can put bookmarks or aliases to here.
And then you have your Shared drives below that.
So right now I have a connection set up already.
I'm already connected, and this is my Windows computer
that acts kind of as a NAS for my home.
Inside here you can see the Shared folders that I have
and you can navigate those as you would expect.
So, you can just go through here
and you can copy and paste files
between here and the local drive on your iPad,
or even other cloud locations.
To connect to a new share
or one that you've already connected to before,
just go to the three button menu at the top.
From here, we can click on Connect to Server.
And here we have the options.
You can either choose an IP address,
just type in the IP address,
and it will automatically convert to an smb share.
If you know the name of your computer,
maybe the computer name is iMac,
you could just type, imac.local,
and your local DNS should probably find it.
After you type in the IP address or the computer name
and hit connect, you're going to be given options
for username and password.
This of course is going to be the username and password
for the computer or NAS that you're connecting to.
After entering the information, go ahead and click Next,
and your server will connect.
So, we can see down here, we have this .10 server.
This is my iMac, my 2020 iMac.
And you can see the shares that we have on here.
So I can see my desktop.
I can see my documents.
I don't really have a lot on that iMac just yet,
so there's not a lot to show there.
To transfer a file from the network share to my iPad,
we just go to a file that we want to transfer.
You can either tap and hold
and it's going to give you the menu options,
or you can hit the select button up here.
Tap the file.
And then you have more and other options down here.
We'll click more.
We'll hit copy.
Actually, what we'll do is we'll hit select,
and we'll hit move,
which is essentially going to copy it
if we're moving it to a different device.
So the last folder I used was my local temp folder,
which is just a folder that I created on the iPad itself
that I use for temporary storage.
I'll hit copy.
So, you do remember earlier
when I mentioned issues, right?
Issues with Airdrop or issues with USB transfer, as well.
This is not immune to that.
The Files app inside iPad OS or iOS is buggy.
Yeah. Buggy.
I frequently run into issues
where sometimes the network shares don't load
or nothing loads at all inside this sidebar.
And really the only solution that I found
is to reboot the iPad.
So, I guess we'll do that.
(light music)
And we're back.
So, let's see if it works this time.
So let's use the same file.
Click on move, local temp, copy. There you go.
So now the file has actually copied over.
Wow. And it even works the opposite way.
Most of the time, as you saw.
The process is pretty simple
and when it works, it's great.
Unfortunately, just like the other file management
or transfer options on iOS, it does have its own bugs.
Sometimes the shares will not connect at all.
Sometimes the folders will not update
on the remote share, and sometimes,
like we just saw, the Files app is just a complete turd.
A reboot usually fixes the issues, but come on.
As I mentioned earlier, there's other ways to transfer files
between devices that don't rely
on network shares, like USB or Airdrop.
But, if you're interested in seeing how to move files
between an iPad and an iPhone,
check out this video over here.
If you have another suggestion,
let me know below.
If you found this helpful,
hit the thumbs up and subscribe buttons
and I'll see you next time.
(light music)