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Can the File Browser browse files on a Mac?
- Thread starter kat.hayes
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Not directly on your Mac as in a Network share, no. There are a couple of caveats: -
- iCloud Desktop and Documents folders shared on the Mac might be enough for a lot of people. You’re still doing that round trip through the cloud though.
- There will be nothing to prevent 3rd parties who already implement SMB/CIFS, HTTP, SFTP, AFP etc. in their app integrating seamlessly with the Files app so you can just browse like that. In fact, I’d bet that this will become a thriving niche for some developers.
The "FileBrowser" App shows up in Files and hints that it will allow Files to access network shares through it, although it doesn't work in the current beta
That will probably be true of lot of people; their documents will either in Desktop and Documents or a OneDrive/Dropbox whatever folder. But, off the top of my head: -
- What if you want to access things not in the mentioned folders. Maybe files on a USB storage drive? File Sharing on the Mac and a suitable Files extension would allow that
- plenty of people have NAS drives at home that they'd like to access and easily drag and drop files to and from
- Same as above but corporate network shares
That's exactly what it's intended for. ICloud + local storage provided by Apple plus an API for 3rd parties to integrate any backend they want. I suggest you go watch the WWDC sessions on the subject and think about what you say next because you're painfully wrong here.
I'm not painfully wrong about the Files app being used to browse network shares mounted to a Mac. Not even a little bit.
3rd party iOS Apps can integrate, of course.
You are still wrong but before we get to that, let's recap, shall we?
OP asked if Files would allow you to browse files on your Mac
I pointed out that iCloud Desktop and Documents would cover a lot of that, for a lot of people, but that 3rd parties would fill the gaps by extending Files (and, yes it will still be the Files app you use to access those)
You "helpfully" steamed in to tell us that your use case is covered by iCloud Desktop and Documents, as though your use case is everyone's use case.
I once again agreed that covers a lot of people's usage, along with the cloud providers but gave three other use cases that are and will be common and are solved by extensions to the Files app.
And you responded with this pointless and factually incorrect sarcasm.
I pointed out that that is wrong
And your final response is to declare that you are "not even a little bit" wrong about Files app being used to browse network shares (actually you said "browse network shares mounted to your Mac", which is nonsensical and not what was being discussed but maybe we can let that one slide). But you are wrong. Files is extensible and can and will be used to browse Network shares.
Perhaps just spare me your "wisdom" in future. Thanks.
OneDrive was having similar feature on PC early on. I don’t use that feature a lot later on, and does not realize if it is still there.
That feature literally allows you to read ALL files, including system files on your computer. Read only of course and you cannot save your files to your computer directly that way but you can get something from your computer if you want it.
That feature literally allows you to read ALL files, including system files on your computer. Read only of course and you cannot save your files to your computer directly that way but you can get something from your computer if you want it.