There are many ways of transferring files from one PC to another, but perhaps one of the most comfortable and fastest for everyday life is via WiFi. With this system, you won’t need to use a physical device such as USB drives or external hard drives. Nor will you have to upload it to a cloud-first, then transmit that link to someone else.
By sending files from one computer to another via WiFi, you can save time and effort, because you can send it from your computer and the other receives it directly, without any intermediate steps. What’s more, there are two very useful ways of doing this, one that requires both devices to be connected to the same wireless network, and one that doesn’t, but does require both computers to have Windows 10 installed with Nearby Sharing active, as you’ll see later.
Nearby Sharing
For convenience and speed, the first option I want to describe is Nearby Sharing. With this function, you can send files via WiFi and Bluetooth to other computers nearby (within the Bluetooth range, i.e. around 10 meters). It’s important to remember that it’s also possible to share files from within the Windows 11 & 10 File Explorer itself.
For this feature to work, the first thing you need to do is enable it in Windows 11 & 10 from the Settings panel on all the computers between which you want to be able to share files easily.
To do this, open the Start menu, then click on the gear icon. In the new window that appears, click on the System option and once inside on Shared Experiences. Now set the Nearby sharing option to switch on and in the drop-down list just below choose Everyone nearby.
Once this is done, the computer is ready to send files via WiFi and receive them. The way to use this function is very simple. Simply right-click on the file you wish to send and choose the Share option. When you do so, a new window will appear, displaying all the devices that detect and are compatible with the device-to-device sharing function.
Click on the PC to which you wish to send the file, and wait for the user on the other computer to accept the file from the window that appears in the bottom right-hand corner of their screen. As soon as they accept, the file transfer will begin and, depending on its size, will take more or less time, although it’s generally very fast.
Sending files via WiFi with shared folders
Another very convenient way of sending files via WiFi is via shared folders. This method is particularly useful in offices, schools, and, in general, local networks where the same computers are usually connected. To use this method, each computer must have at least one shared folder. This way, any other PC on the network with permissions can send files to this folder without authorization.
If you wish to use this method, the first thing to do is share the folder(s) you wish to use. To do this, right-click on one of the folders you wish to share and go to Properties.
In the window that appears, click on the Share tab, then on the Advanced Sharing button. Once inside, activate the Share this Folder option and assign a sharing name.
Finally, click on Permissions, add the users to whom you wish to grant access (or Everyone so that all users on the local network can access it), and then assign the permissions you wish to grant or deny them. Click OK to close the permissions window, then OK to share the folder.
Once this has been done, the folder will be visible and accessible from any computer on the network. To do this, any other user can locate it from the network or by typing into Windows Explorer the path name of the shared folder and leaving the files they want to share in it.
It’s important to note that if you select Everyone in the permissions section any PC that connects to the network will have access. So, if you’re working with this method and guests are usually connected to your network, bear in mind that they can access shared folders and all their contents.
Setting up an HTTP server to share files over the network
For this, far from having to carry out complex and convoluted configurations or installations, we’re going to use a tool that’s also free and will enable us to share files more easily from our computer or cell phone, for example, with other devices connected to our same network such as other computers, mobiles, tablets, etc.
The software we’re referring to is called MiniWeb HTTP Server, and as its name suggests, it allows us to set up a personal HTTP server on our private network so we can easily share files with the rest of the devices connected to the same network.
It’s a fairly lightweight piece of software and doesn’t require any complicated configurations either. A tool we can use when other options aren’t useful to us, such as the option of sharing files from the Windows browser.
To start using MiniWeb HTTP Server, the first thing to do is download the tool. This will allow us to save a .ZIP file on our computer that we need to unzip. Once this has been done, we’ll see that when we open the folder where we unzipped the tool, we find the MiniWeb HTTP Server executable file and the htdocs folder.
We open this folder and the next thing we’ll do is locate the index.html file and rename it with the name we want, but keeping the extension. The next thing we’ll do is paste into this same htdocs folder all the files we want to share with the rest of the devices on our network. Now we’re ready to launch the tool using the miniweb.exe executable located next to the htdocs folder.
Next, we’ll see how MiniWeb HTTP Server opens in a command prompt window where server statistics are displayed, which in this case will be the IP address of our computer next to port 8000, which is the one the tool uses by default to establish this connection and access the files we want to exchange or share. We can minimize this command line window and leave it in the background on the desktop.
At this point, we can already take another of the devices connected to the same network, for example, the mobile, open a browser, and write in the address bar the hostname indicated in the command line window, i.e. the IP address, followed by “: 8000”.
Next, the mobile browser or device we’re using will show us the contents of the htdocs directory and, as a result, we’ll have access to the files we’ve previously copied there, so we can open or download them with ease.
Using Third-party programs
As well as doing it with your own computer functions thanks to WiFi connection and the famous cloud storage services, if these functions don’t convince you or if you’re looking for something else, you can resort to external programs designed to perform this task. That’s why we’re telling you that some of them work well, are safe and may be of interest to you.
Send Anywhere
This program, present on different platforms such as Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, allows us to share files and folders between different devices that are connected on a WiFi network.
We don’t need to configure it in any way, since everything comes ready to use it. The only thing we need to do to share the files we want is to copy them into the program and from there we choose which device, of all those on the network, we want to send a file to. In no time, depending on the speed of your network, it will be sent and received. As you can see, the system is extremely simple, something we appreciate so we don’t have to complicate our lives.
EaseUS Todo PCTrans
This is a full-featured computer transfer tool capable of moving not only files, but also applications and accounts between Windows computers. It performs automatic program migration, moves user accounts and settings, and supports the transfer of programs such as Adobe, Office, and others.
You can download it for free right now, even though it’s a paid program. So it might cost more when you read this. It’s interesting if you want to take advantage of all its features. However, if all you want to do is share files, you have other options for which you won’t have to pay.
It’s possible to bundle with other programs from the same company to save money and pay by PayPal or credit card. There’s also a trial version known as EaseUS Todo PCTrans Free Plus you can find on their site and this allows you to migrate up to 2 GB of data and five programs. Its functionality is limited, but it’s a good way to move programs to another hard disk or if you’re going to transfer to another computer with Windows 11.
Winpinator
Winpinator is an open-source tool with which we’ll be able to send and receive files between computers that are on the same network, easily and quickly. It also allows connecting to various computers and selecting the port.
This program and its original version for Linux, Warpinator, are one of the best third-party options you’ll find for the task at hand, because among other things, it automatically detects the two computers between which we want to exchange files, and it’s configured only within the same network.
The only thing we’ll have to do is install the program and select a group code. Quite an advantage over other tools that require us to specify the IP of our PC.
Winpinator has become very popular since the launch of Steam Deck, making it much easier to share files between Valve’s handheld console and our PC. What’s more, it’s compatible between different versions, since Steam Deck uses Linux, so we’ll be installing Warpinator, and on our PC, we’re likely using Windows, and what we’ll be installing is Winpinator.
Last but not least, it has a very clear and simple interface and menu, so that any user with basic computer skills will be able to set it up and use it. You can download it for free, and currently it only has English and Polish translations.
Using a NAS server
A NAS server is a simple piece of equipment we can use as a home security cloud, which would be an external hard disk that also connects to the cloud. This gives us the possibility of not only having our data secure, in case something happens to the PC, but we can give someone else permission to access certain folders, to be able to copy data, or even add it. So, it would be a great option for us to transmit documents, videos, or programs between one computer and another.
What’s more, it serves different devices, since, for example, the Synology brand has its own app on Android, iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows… and even Smart TV.
This equipment has a high cost (depending on the model). However, if you’re going to pay for a cloud server for a long time, they don’t seem so expensive anymore, because once purchased, you won’t pay anything else for storage, because it’s yours. You can be the only one to charge your friends if you want to.
Common problems when sharing files between PCs
As we’ve verified, using one of these options to easily share files between two PCs connected to the same WiFi or Windows 11 or 10 is very comfortable, as it doesn’t require us to have the two computers physically connected by cable, and it’s not even necessary for them to be side by side.
Although the configuration and the process are quite simple, the truth is that we can find some problems such as:
The PC to which I want to send the file doesn’t appear
If when selecting the Share option by clicking on the file we want to send, the computer to which we want to send it doesn’t appear, it’s likely that this computer doesn’t have the Nearby sharing option enabled. In this case, we should go to that team or ask the person sitting in front of it to make sure they enable the option on the configuration page > System > Shared experiences > Nearby sharing. Once this has been done, we can try sending the file again.
We can’t find files that have been shared with us
If someone has shared a file with us using Windows 10’s Nearby sharing feature and we can’t find that file, we need to check the path configured as the destination for those files. By default, Microsoft’s operating system sets the path C:/Users/User/Downloads, where User will be the name of our user folder on the system. We therefore need to go to this path to check whether the shared files are there. If we want the path to be different, then we need to go to the configuration page > System > Shared experiences > Nearby sharing and change it to the one we want.
We can’t leave a file in another team’s shared folder
If we use the shared folder method, we’re likely to encounter certain problems when accessing or retrieving files. In this case, we need to examine the permissions granted on the shared folder itself because if they’re not correct, we might not be able to access it or paste files.
