How to transfer or migrate files from Windows PC to Mac

Posted on October 8, 2008 at 5:43 am

Mac computers are becoming more popular everyday because of the immense popularity of iPods and iPhones. This is great for Apple, but can prove to be a pain if you’ve always run Windows (like me) and now you have to try and share files between the Mac and a PC!

Migrating files from PC to Mac can be hard or easy depending on what versions of the OS you are running. For example, if you are trying to transfer files from a Windows 98 computer to a Mac G3 over a network, forget about it! It’s too painful to configure and it would be much easier to simply burn a CD and move it over that way.

However, if you are running Windows XP and trying to transfer files to Mac OS X, then it’s much easier to configure a direct connection between the computers over a network. This makes it much easier to transfer a large amount of data, which is possible via USB flash drives and CD’s, but would take much longer.

Now there are several ways we can actually migrate the files from a PC to a Mac, so I will try to explain as many as possible in case one does not work out for you.

Method 1: Enable Windows File Sharing on Mac

This is probably the simplest and most effective way to share files between a PC and a Mac. To turn on Windows File Sharing, click on System Preferences from the Apple menu.

Now from the View or System section, choose Accounts.

Select the account and choose Edit User. Now select the Allow user to log in from Windows checkbox. You’ll be asked to reset your password, so enter that and click Save.

If you are running an older version of OS X, you may have to click on the Sharing button from System Preferences and then click the checkbox for Windows Sharing. There will be an Enable Accounts button to choose which users can log in from Windows.

The other thing you have to make sure is that both the Mac and PC are in the same workgroup. By default, the Mac is in a group called “Workgroup” and so you need to make sure that the PC workgroup name is exactly the same.

In Windows, you can right-click on My Computer, choose Properties and then click on the Computer Name tab. Click on the Change button to change the workgroup name.

To change the workgroup name on a Mac, follow these steps from the Apple support site.

Now on your Windows machine, you can either go to My Network Places and browse the entire network and you should be able to see the Mac. You can also go to Windows Explorer and type in the IP address of the Mac computer like so:

\\192.xxx.xxx.xxx

That should show you a list of the shared folders on the Mac. You can now transfer files between the two computers.

Method 2: Share Windows folder

You can also do it the opposite way by sharing a Windows folder and then connecting from the Mac to the PC. First share a folder on your Windows machine by right-clicking on the folder and going to Sharing and Security. Give it a share name and give it the appropriate permissions.

Then on your Mac, press CMD + K and type in the following command line:

smb://192.x.x.x/ShareName

Type in your Windows user name and password and you should be able to see the contents of the share. If you type in the correct credentials and it still does not work, you might have to turn off Simple File Sharing in Windows.

You can do that by going to My Computer, then Tools, then Options, click on the View tab and uncheck Simple File Sharing at the bottom of the list.

Method 3: PC MacLan

If you can’t get any of these methods to work, you can check out a program called PC MACLAN, which connects PCs and MACs quickly and simply. It’s supposedly made for beginners who do not understand how to what I talked about in the first two methods. If this describes you, then check out this program for connecting your PC to your Mac.

Hopefully one of these two methods worked out for you! If not, post a comment and I’ll try to help you out. Enjoy!

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2 Responses to “How to transfer or migrate files from Windows PC to Mac”

gvmelle said on : October 9th, 2008 at 1:08 am

This is not a well thought through article. The settings for the Mac OSX are for version 10.2 and NOT for the latest: Leopard, 10.5. Readers can better consult the page Mac OSX: Setting up windows file sharing: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT.....cale=en_US

Tom said on : October 14th, 2008 at 6:31 pm

Use a PC-MAC USB data transfer cable:
http://www.usbmax.com/USBG-MAC.....SB_2.0.cfm
No setup, no software to install. Just plug each end into a USB port on each computer and start the file transfer.