Google is adding a new feature to Chrome OS that’ll make it a little easier to use a Chromebook on the same home or work network as computers running Windows, macOS, or Linux.

According to Google’s François Beaufort, the latest Chrome OS Canary build includes native support for network file shares such as Samba. That should make it easier to copy files between computers, play music or movies from a shared network drive, or generally access files that are stored on another computer on your network.

You can connect to a network share by opening the Settings menu, choosing the option that says Network File Shares, and then entering a URL, username and password. After that, the shared folder should show up in the Chrome OS Files app.

If you don’t want to install Chrome OS Canary to try out the feature, just wait another month or so. Network File Share support should be available to all users when Chrome OS stable rolls out in late October.

via Android Police

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7 replies on “Chrome OS gets native support for connecting to network shared folders and files”

  1. Will this work on my 2012 Samsung ARM 32 bit Chromebook? Or, will it only work on the latest 2018 Chromebooks and everybody else is screwed?

  2. ChromeOS (the web browser on light hardware) is dead. Long live ChromeOS (the complete Desktop OS – on better spec’d hardware… hopefully).

    Honestly… if it wasn’t for that pesky, all-seeing, spyware issue, I’d be seriously looking at the Pixelbook right now. I’ll stick with pure (privacy-respecting) Linux. But… Given a choice among the big three data-collecting commercial vendors though (Microsoft, Apple and Google), I’d opt for Google.

  3. Great advancement.

    ChromeOS is rapidly becoming a capable, versatile Linux distro.

    This, together with the ability to run Android and desktop-Linux applications make it quite an appealing choice for many roles. I am considering it for first-laptop/computer of my 10 yr old.

    1. My son got his first chromebook in 7th grade, and the school district paid for it. He uses Google docs and infinite campus on it. I would check with your school district to see when he will be given a chromebook.

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