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Mapping network drives

F

Foxile

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 27, 2007
111
0
I'm loving my move to Mac, but one thing that niggles me ( and I can't see a way of doing it ) is that I can't map network drives to either appear as shortcuts on the desktop or within Finder ( I know I can have the option ticked to show external drives and then expand them ).

The only way it happens now is if I click on each of the folders within the NAS, so that they 'appear' on the desktop. I'd prefer to have them there whenever I start my Mac.

Is it possible ( if MS can do it, surely Apple can too ;)), or is it a niggle I'm going to have to live with ??
 
Once you have the drives mounted the first time, just drag the icons from the desktop into your login items (system prefs/accounts). Bingo. =]
 
tersono said:
Once you have the drives mounted the first time, just drag the icons from the desktop into your login items (system prefs/accounts). Bingo. =]
Click to expand...

Brilliant, thanks :)

Is there any way to just have it just place the icons on the desktop, as it currently opens all the folders too ?
 
Via the simplest--drag to login items--method, you can't avoid having windows pop up when you log in, although for me I almost always left several windows open when I last logged out so this is a complete non-issue.

If you want to avoid that, you can alternately write a really simple Applescript to mount the volumes, or there are several pieces of Share/Freeware that'll do this as well.

I've used one of the freeware apps at work, but I'm not sure which it was and I can't check right now; go to VersionTracker.com and do a search on mount network, and you should get several apps that are all intended to do this--see if there's one you like.
 
Foxile said:
Brilliant, thanks :)

Is there any way to just have it just place the icons on the desktop, as it currently opens all the folders too ?
Click to expand...

Once the volume is mounted, make alias (COMMAND-L) of the volume and place it where you want.

If you have lost connection, simply double click the alias.

You can mount multiple drive shares from other computers in a second. I put the aliases in a folder, open folder, Command-A to select all, and Command-O to open. You can also use Automator to open the aliases periodically.
 
That post reminded me of another way to do this, which is actually what I do at home; if you only need the drive mounted when you actually want to access it (as opposed to some automatic process like a backup app that needs it available, though even most of those will automount for you), you can drag either the whole volume or just the folder(s) you want into the Finder sidebar and/or the Dock. The sidebar method will also add it to the sidebar in save/open windows, of course.

If you do that, just click the item in the sidebar/Dock, and it'll mount if it's not already (including if you've got a subfolder there--it'll mount the volume then go to the relevant subfolder). At home I do that with my server, and I've never had the slightest issue--the delay to mount it if it's not already is maybe a second, and there is no other difference versus when it was already mounted.
 
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