The simplest solution to connect an Android phone to a computer via WiFi is ES Explorer. The application is free and has a clear interface, but most Android phone owners limit themselves to using it only as a file manager. To open the network capabilities of the program you must:
If the connection is successful, all directories on the computer available for public use will be displayed.
To open files from your phone to your computer via WiFi, it is recommended to use another menu item: “Network -> FTP”. No authentication or selection of additional settings is required. The application will independently create an FTP server on your smartphone, open the required port and provide a ready-made link for connection.
You can view or download files from your phone via WiFi in any browser. It is enough to enter the specified data in its address bar.
If, in addition to viewing files, you need to download from an Android device or upload folders to it, this can be done through standard operating system applications. To do this, just enter the server address that was provided by the program directly into the “Explorer” line. Directories located in the smartphone’s memory will open in the same form as files and folders on the computer itself.
In the search bar, enter es file explorer and press Search:
Select an application from the search results ES Explorer from the developer ES APP Group:
Click Install:
Click Accept:
After downloading and installing the app is complete ES Explorer(or ES File Explorer) click Open:
Settings ES File Explorer
The application has three screens:
- HomePage(HomePage);
- Device;
- Net.
Go to screen Net by swiping to the side and clicking the button in the lower left corner Create:
Select the connection type from the list: LAN:
In the settings window Server please indicate:
- Server IP address;
- Username;
- Password;
- Display name (optional)
and press OK:
To the list called LAN your computer will be added (this can be a laptop, server, network storage, in general, any network device with a storage device).
Using ES File Explorer to access your computer over the network from an Android device
Click on the icon of the newly added network device (see figure above).
If the login and password were specified correctly, you will see a list of network folders.
In our example, we opened the desired network folder with media content under the name Media. Therefore, we go to the network folder Media:
In it we see videos:
And audio recordings in the folder Music:
We check music playback - click directly on the file in the network folder. A window appears asking you to select a player. Check the box Set as default and select your favorite player:
The recording will be played:
You can switch the folder display to a list or table using the button View:
How to copy a file from your computer to your Android device
Long press on the file to turn on selection mode.
Check the files you want to copy from the network drive to your Android device.
Click the button More and select Copy to:
Select the folder on your Android device where you want to copy files from the network folder and click OK:
Create another folder in the folder or just click OK to copy files directly to the current folder:
Files are being copied:
Most of those who own an Android tablet or smartphone for the first time sooner or later wonder: how to connect an Android device to a computer via WiFi?
If you are tired of transferring files from your personal computer to your Android device and back using a flash drive or memory card, or you want to watch movies and listen to music from your PC via WiFi, these couple of methods will help you using well-known programs from the Google Play Store.
To scan your network environment, click the button with the image of a magnifying glass, after which the network scan will begin.
After the scanning is completed, a list of servers (computers) with their network addresses will appear on the screen.
If your computer is not found during scanning, you can add it manually. To do this, go to the menu -> create -> server, and in the window that opens, enter the network address of the computer or folder on it, login, password, server name. If a login and password are not needed, check the “anonymous” box. It is not necessary to enter the server name. If you did not enter a name, the address entered in the first field will be displayed instead in the list of network resources.
We press the OK button, and we see how a new server has appeared in the list of network resources. By tapping on it, we will see its folders and drives to which network access is open.
All. Now you have the ability to copy and open files on a remote computer via a local network.
If you cannot access a computer running Windows 7, try in Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Advanced sharing options and check the box next to “Turn off password protected sharing”. And make sure that the “Turn on network discovery” and “Turn on file and printer sharing” options are also enabled.
Also, do not forget to enable sharing in the properties of the drive or folder to which you want to give access over the network and set permissions for users, if this option is available.Total Commander, as you know, is a classic two-panel manager, and in order to copy a file over the network, we need to open a folder located on the computer on one panel, and the local tablet folder on the second, and then simply drag the desired file from one panel to the other.
First of all, we need to install the application itself. Total Commander can be downloaded.
After this, you will need to add a plugin to the program to work on the local network. To do this, click on the “Add plugins (Download from website)…” item in the main program window:
After which a window will open asking you to go to the plugin download page:
Click the “OK” button, after which the browser will start and the following page will open in it:
We need to select the second item LAN (Windows network) Plugin and click on the link Download+Install
In the window that opens, select Play Store
The LAN plugin window will open in the Play Store. Click on the “Install” button
After installing the plugin, the LAN icon (Windows shared network directories) will appear on the Total Commander main screen:
Using this item you will navigate to files and folders on your computer. However, first, we need to access it. To do this, click on the above icon and add a new server to the list of computers by clicking on the corresponding icon:
In the window that opens, type:
The name of your computer as you want to see it in the list:
Computer network name or network address, username and password:
You do not need to set a username and password if your computer has network access to folders and directories for all users.
To find out the network address of your computer, click on the WiFi connection icon with the second mouse button and select “Status”, and in the window that opens, click on the “Details” button.
In the IPv4 Address line you will see the network address of your computer.
All. Now you can access your computer's folders and files via your local network via WiFi.
If you cannot access a computer running Windows 7, try in “Control Panel” -> “Network and Sharing Center” -> “Advanced sharing settings” and check the box next to “Turn off password sharing” protection."
Also, make sure that the “Turn on network discovery” and “Turn on file and printer sharing” options are also enabled there.Also, do not forget to enable sharing in the properties of the drive or folder on the computer to which you want to give access over the network and set permissions for users, if this option is available.
I'll probably be right if I say that every second owner of a tablet or phone on the Android operating system has at least once thought about the question - how to connect your mobile gadget to your home local network so that you can download videos and music from your computer or laptop, and in the return post photos and videos taken. Unfortunately, this operating system does not yet have built-in support for the Samba protocol, which runs the network environment in Windows. But as Baron Munchausen used to say: “There are no hopeless situations”! In principle, there is a very simple and quick solution that allows you to connect Android to the Windows local network using the excellent free ES Explorer utility.
True, here you need to clearly understand that in order to implement the idea, the home local network must be organized through a WiFi router (or, at a minimum, there must be a wireless access point), with which the phone or tablet will be connected. It doesn't have a cable connector!
We find it in the Play Market application “ES Explorer”, install and launch it.
In the main menu of the program, select the “Network” section:
Another submenu will open in which you need to select the “LAN” section:
Otherwise, run it manually by clicking on the “Scan” button. The program will detect your computer and show it in the list. In fact, this is an analogue of Network Neighborhood in Windows.
Click on it. If guest access is configured on the PC, then the login will be automatically made with Guest rights. Otherwise, you will be prompted for login and password:
The simplest solution to connect an Android phone to a computer via WiFi is ES Explorer. The application is free and has a clear interface, but most owners...
Today, smartphones and tablets have become closely integrated into our daily lives. It’s hard to imagine that a few years ago no one knew what Android was, and that there might not be a device running this operating system in every apartment. But in addition to Internet surfing, games and communication on social networks, advanced users use tablets and smartphones to view photos and watch videos. Therefore, we are often asked questions like:
- How to watch a movie on a tablet from a computer over the network;
- How to log into a computer from a smartphone;
- How to access a network folder from a smartphone.
Today we decided to answer these questions. Because thanks to the abundance of applications on Google Play, this problem can be easily solved. Below we will talk about how to access a network folder on a computer from an Android device.
Access from Android to Windows. Settings on the computer side
2 Open access to the desired folder. As an example, we took a typical and simple situation: we place media content on a separate disk and open access from the local network to the entire disk:
Right-click on the desired folder/drive and select Properties:
Go to the tab Access and press the button Advanced setup:
Check the box Share this folder, enter a name for the network folder and click OK:
Access is open. Now click Close to close the folder properties window:
Access from Android to Windows. Settings on the smartphone/tablet side
Installing the application.
Run Play Market:
In the search bar, enter es file explorer and press Search:
Select an application from the search results ES Explorer from the developer ES APP Group:
Click Install:
Click Accept:
After downloading and installing the app is complete ES Explorer(or ES File Explorer) click Open:
Settings ES File Explorer
The application has three screens:
- HomePage(HomePage);
- Device;
- Net.
Go to screen Net by swiping to the side and clicking the button in the lower left corner Create:
Select the connection type from the list: LAN:
In the settings window Server please indicate:
- Server IP address;
- Username;
- Password;
- Display name (optional)
and press OK:
To the list called LAN your computer will be added (it can be a laptop, server, network storage, in general, any network device with a storage device).
Using ES File Explorer to access your computer over the network from an Android device
Click on the icon of the newly added network device (see figure above).
If the login and password were specified correctly, you will see a list of network folders.
In our example, we opened the desired network folder with media content under the name Media. Therefore, we go to the network folder Media:
In it we see videos:
And audio recordings in the folder Music:
We check music playback - click directly on the file in the network folder. A window appears asking you to select a player. Check the box Set as default and select your favorite player:
The recording will be played:
You can switch the folder display to a list or table using the button View:
How to copy a file from your computer to your Android device
Long press on the file to turn on selection mode.
Check the files you want to copy from the network drive to your Android device.
Click the button More and select Copy to:
Select the folder on your Android device where you want to copy files from the network folder and click OK:
Create another folder in the folder or just click OK to copy files directly to the current folder:
Files are being copied:
I'll probably be right if I say that every second owner of a tablet or phone on the Android operating system has at least once thought about the question - how to connect your mobile gadget to your home local network so that you can download videos and music from your computer or laptop, and in the return post photos and videos taken. Unfortunately, this operating system does not yet have built-in support for the Samba protocol, which runs the network environment in Windows. But as Baron Munchausen used to say: “There are no hopeless situations”! In principle, there is a very simple and quick solution that allows you to connect Android to the Windows local network using the excellent free ES Explorer utility.
True, here you need to clearly understand that in order to implement the idea, the home local network must be organized through a WiFi router (or, at a minimum, there must be a wireless access point), with which the phone or tablet will be connected. It doesn't have a cable connector!
We find it in the Play Market application “ES Explorer”, install and launch it.
In the main menu of the program, select the “Network” section:
Another submenu will open in which you need to select the “LAN” section:
Otherwise, run it manually by clicking on the “Scan” button. The program will detect your computer and show it in the list. In fact, this is an analogue of Network Neighborhood in Windows.
Click on it. If guest access is configured on the PC, then the login will be automatically made with Guest rights. Otherwise, you will be prompted for login and password:
Enter your account name and click OK. And voila - and we connected from Android to Windows via the local network! Here are the computer folders:
As you can see from the screenshot, I connected under the Administrator account and I generally have access to all user drives and folders. You can create a separate account for mobile devices and open only those catalogs that you need for it. Good luck!
If you often transfer files from your Android smartphone or tablet to your computer, and vice versa, then you most likely do this via a USB cable. Today I will talk about a way in which you can transfer files (photo, video, music) to the phone from the computer (and vice versa) via a Wi-Fi network, through a router.
We will have full access to files on a smartphone or tablet and will be able to copy, delete, and create new files, just like when connecting to a computer via cable. Only in our case, we will connect over the air, without wires. And the connection will be configured via FTP.
All you need is an Android mobile device, a computer or laptop, and a router. The computer and phone must be connected to the same router. We connect Android via Wi-Fi network, this is understandable, and the computer can be connected either via cable (LAN) or via Wi-Fi.
On your phone or tablet, we will launch an FTP server using the ES Explorer program (this is done in a few clicks), and on the computer we will connect to the FTP server, which we will launch on Android. And that’s it, you can transfer files. Please note that you will not have access to files that are located on your computer. And there will be access only to files on the mobile device, as to a storage device. If you want to access files on your computer, you need to set up a local network. There is some information in the article.
Setting up an FTP connection between an Android device and Windows
Before moving on to the setup, you need to decide whether you want to establish such a connection only occasionally, and after each disconnection and connection of your smartphone to the router, enter a new address on your computer, or you will often use an FTP connection and want to create a connection to your device on your computer. Then you can simply launch the server on your mobile device and immediately view the files on your computer.
If you want to create an FTP connection to your Android device on your computer, and not enter the address each time, then you must reserve a static IP address for your phone (tablet) in the settings of your router. So that the router for your device always gives the same IP.
This is done differently on different routers. I will definitely prepare separate instructions for different routers later. Here, for example:
Go to the router settings, and on the main page click on the “Clients” tab
Next, click on the device for which you want to reserve an address, set the switch opposite “MAC and IP address Binding” to the “ON” position, and click the “Apply” button. Everything is ready, now our phone, in my case Lenovo, will always receive the address 192.168.1.178.
Launching an FTP server on Android using the ES Explorer program
Perhaps there are other programs for these tasks, but I didn’t even bother checking. Everything works fine through ES Explorer. And in general, I think this file manager is the best for Android.
If you do not yet have ES Explorer installed, install it through the Google Play Store. You can install directly from your device. Here, I’ll give you another link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.estrongs.android.pop&hl=ru.
Update: The ES Explorer app is no longer available on Google Play. You need to search for and download it from third-party sites as an .apk file. But at your own peril and risk.
Next, launch ES Explorer. Open the menu (swipe from left to right), and select "Remote access". Under "Status" there should be the name of your Wi-Fi network. Click on the button "Turn on".
The address that we will now enter on the computer will appear.
This completes the FTP setup on Android. If you click on the button in the form of a “gear”, the settings will open. There are not many of them, but they are useful. For example, you can prevent the server from shutting down after closing the program, you can configure the port, set the root folder, change the encoding. See more information on settings under the spoiler.
There is an account setup there. By default, an unsecured FTP server is created with anonymous access. If desired, you can specify a username and password, which you will then need to specify when connecting to your computer. But this is optional. And yet, there is an item “Create a shortcut”. After clicking on it, a shortcut will appear on the desktop with which you can launch the FTP server with one click.
Let's move on to the settings on the computer.
Connect from your computer to your phone or tablet via Wi-Fi
I tested the connection from a laptop on Windows 7 and Windows 10. If you have Windows 8, everything will work the same. The laptop easily opened the FTP server that was running on the smartphone, and I had full access to the files and could manage them.
Everything is simple here. Open Explorer on your computer, or go to “My Computer”, “This Computer” (in Windows 10), and in the address bar enter the address that appeared in the “ES Explorer” program on your mobile device. Mine is "ftp://192.168.1.221:3721/". You will most likely have a different address.
Look carefully and enter without errors. When entered, press Enter. You will remove all files on your mobile device. In Windows 10 everything is exactly the same.
Now you can manage files: copy them from your phone to your computer, and vice versa. Delete, move, create folders, etc.
But, if you close the Explorer window, you will need to enter the address again, which is not very convenient. Therefore, you can create a connection to an FTP server in Windows. After this, a folder on your device will appear, opening which you will immediately have access to the files. Provided that the server on the phone is turned on.
You can establish a connection to FTP using a standard Windows tool. If for some reason the standard tool does not suit you, then you can use third-party programs, for example the "FileZilla" client.
Create a permanent folder with an FTP connection to your smartphone
Note! This method will only work if you have reserved a static IP address for your mobile device in the router settings.
Go to Explorer ("My Computer"), and click on "Map network drive".
On Windows 10, this step looks a little different:
Another window will open in which we click “Next”. In the next window, double-click on “Select a different network location.”
An account setup window will appear. If you did not specify a username and password in the ES Explorer program, then leave a checkmark next to “Anonymous login” and click “Next”. And if you specified connection information, then indicate it.
In the next window you need to specify a name for the network connection. I wrote something like "My Lenovo". You can enter any name and click "Next". In the last window, click on the “Finish” button.
A folder with files located on your Android device will immediately open. A shortcut to this folder will always be in Explorer. And the files in this folder will always be available when the FTP server is enabled on the mobile device (remote access).
When you want to upload a song to your phone, or look at a photo, you just need to enable “Remote Access” on your mobile device and go to the folder we created.
Is it possible to connect a laptop to a phone via Wi-Fi, but without a router?
Yes, you can. If you don't have a router and want to transfer files between your Android mobile device and your laptop wirelessly, then everything can be set up a little differently. Or rather, the settings will be exactly the same, you just need to organize the connection differently.
If it is not possible to connect through a router, then you need to organize a direct connection between the laptop and the mobile device. To do this, just start distributing the Wi-Fi network on your phone. It seems to me that every smartphone can do this. This function is called differently. Something like "Access Point".
Launching an access point on a smartphone (you don’t even have to turn on the mobile Internet so that the laptop doesn’t eat up all the traffic), and connect our laptop to this access point. Continue according to the standard scheme that I described above. Everything works, I checked it.
Afterword
If you don't often connect to your mobile device to share files, you can, of course, use a USB cable. But, if you often need to copy something, then the method described above definitely deserves attention. We click on the icon on the mobile device, and on the computer we immediately get access to the files. It's convenient.
How do you use this connection? What pros and cons do you see? Share your experience in the comments, and of course ask questions.
Today we will talk about a seemingly very banal topic, namely the local network.
The local network, LAN(slang. local; English Local Area Network (LAN) is a computer network covering a relatively small area or group of buildings (home, office, company, institute).
Ask: “What is the connection between LAN and smartphones?” Everything is very simple. When I bought my first Android smartphone (HTC Wildfire), I was very interested in how this “smart guy” was able to tightly “communicate” with computers without the help of a synchronization cable, using only the Wi-Fi module.
Having studied it inside and out, I noticed that the firmware was not suitable for a network environment. Only later versions of Android introduced DLNA.
D digital L iving N etwork A lliance is a standard that allows compatible devices to transmit and receive various media content (images, music, videos) over the home network, as well as display it in real time.
But I wanted to transfer not only music, but also documents and other files. And many thanks to the third-party developers who came up with a cool program for Android that helped me turn my wish into reality, “This program combines a file manager with its own archiver, multimedia support and so on and so forth. But her trick lies elsewhere. Using ES Explorer, it is very simple and convenient to share files over the network and with cloud services (Google Drive, Sky Drive, Drop Box, etc.).
So, we will need a computer (OS - Windows, Linux, possibly OS X), a smartphone (Android OS) and a shared Wi-Fi point (router).
Download the application from Google Play (it is free) and install it on your smartphone.
At the top you see three bookmarks. By default there are four of them, but I removed one (FTP) because I don’t use this protocol. Let's talk about the LAN and “Network” bookmarks. Let's start with LAN.
When you click on the bookmark, you see the following picture:
Here I added the computers that I use. To do this, you need to click on the second button from the right (with a plus sign), and then a window will appear in which you will be asked to create a server or scan your network environment. Let me note right away that the scanning process can be lengthy and not always effective. So select the “Server” item.
Here you are asked to specify a domain name (if you have a DNS server), server IP address (for example 192.168.0.100), login and password (if your computer requires it), check the “Anonymous” checkbox (more on that later) and, in fact, enter the name of the connection (the name that will be displayed on your smartphone; it can be anything, for example, “Home computer”).
If you check the Anonymous checkbox, it will look like this:
All you have to do is enter the computer's IP address and connection name, which is enough to exchange documents between your smartphone and PC. Now you need to share folders or drives on your computer.
The smartphone and PC must be on the same Wi-Fi network
Now take your smartphone and go to your computer, select a folder or file, and press the icon.
Now select an action (for example, copy or cut) and go to the PDA tab.
Select the folder where you want to paste the file, and voila, it’s on your phone.
The same can be done with cloud servers. Select the “Network” tab.
We add a server in the same way as we added a computer, only here you will have to enter the credentials of your account in the cloud service.
After adding cloud servers, you can do the same file sharing activities as you would with a PC. You can also exchange directly between the cloud and a PC using a smartphone (without downloading information to it).
If, unlike me, you use an FTP server somewhere, then know that adding and setting up are similar. The only thing is to check the correctness of the port, login and password (if required). It is much more interesting to get through a browser to a smartphone using FTP. To do this, you need to go to the ES Explorer settings.
Select remote access settings (Root rights are not needed).
And we set everything up: select the port (any port is possible, but let it stand as it is) and the root folder (the folder into which the first login will be made). Next, we set up accounts (this is if you want to limit access to your smartphone), then set up the encoding (if the browser shows hieroglyphs), and quickly launch the FTP server (creates a shortcut on the smartphone’s desktop). To get to your smartphone from a computer, you need to type ftp://192.168.0.102:3721 in your browser (just enter the IP address of your phone, it is listed in the “Remote access” section).
P.S. And advice to students. If you have a Wi-Fi network deployed at your university, buy yourself a Wi-Fi adapter. This will greatly simplify the task of copying information.
If you find an error, please highlight a piece of text and click Ctrl+Enter.
