This tip shows how to connect to a shared drive/folder in order to access it via the Finder or from within an application. To access a shared resource can either be located on the Local Area Network (LAN) or remotely in which case a VPN connection needs to be established first. 

In addition to the standard instructions to connect to the server, I will also have two Hints entry that outline a process to create a Desktop Alias and a Dock Icon to allow quicker access.

The first step is to pull down the Finder’s Go Menu and clicking on the Connect to Server option:

The following window will open:

Now enter the Server address, in our example it is the server called ad01 and we want to connect to the GroupShare folder. Since we are identifying a network location we wan to connect to we will use the smb URI prefix which identifies the network sharing protocol. The final URI we enter will besmb://ad01/GroupShare.

NOTE: Sometimes when the DNS is not working to well between the local and remote system it may be better to enter the static IP address of the server. For this example it would be smb://192.168.10.100/GroupShare.

So that we don’t how to do this every time we want to connect, we will click on the + button to save the link as a Favorite.

To connect to the folder, we just click on the Connect button:

A new window will open to provide connection status:

If the device is restricted to users and requires user authentication the following window will open:

You system will automatically enter the user name you are logged in as, in some cases it may be different (especially if you login from Home to your Office system) and you will need to change it. Enter the user name and password required to gain access and click on the Connect button:

Once connected a Finder window will open with the content of the folder. To disconnect the folder/drive click on the eject icon  to the right of the drive name (ad01) under the shared section in the left window of the finder.

To reconnect pull down the Finder’s Go menu, select Connect to Server, select in the new window the folder/drive from the Favorite Servers list and click the Connect button.

Some may feel this are too many steps to connect to a favorite server. I agree. therefore take a look at my trick entry on how to create a Shared Device shortcut by creating a Desktop Alias.