Solved: Windows 11 Mapped Drive Not Showing Up

What Is a Mapped Drive?

A mapped drive is just a shortcut to a drive that is physically located on another computer. This shortcut looks like a shortcut to a local hard drive (such as the C drive) and is assigned its own drive letter, but all files in the mapped drive are actually stored physically on another computer.

It's similar to a shortcut on your desktop, such as a shortcut to open a picture file in a Picture folder, but used to access something from another computer. Mapped drives can be used to access resources on different computers on the local network, as well as files on websites or FTP servers.

What Causes Mapped Network Drive Not Showing Up?

Many people map their folders when they want to permanently access a folder on another computer, network, or server. Unfortunately, mapped drives don't always work the way we would like them to, and some people may experience issues with mapped network drives not showing up. This issue mainly has the following symptoms:

• You can't see the network drive under File Explorer.
• You can see the network drive under File Explorer but it doesn't show all folders/files.

When your shared drive does not show up on Windows 11, how to fix it? Read on to find the solutions.

How to Fix Windows 11 Mapped Drive Not Showing Up

When your mapped network drives are not showing up on Windows 11, here are 3 things you can try to fix the issue and then let you successfully access files on another PC.

Method 1. Repair Network Drive Not Showing in File Explorer

Microsoft uses User Account Control (UAC) in its Windows Vista and later operating systems. This mechanism can notify the user whether the application is authorized to use the hard disk and system files, to help prevent malicious programs from damaging the system.

However, because of UAC, a Shell running with standard user privileges cannot view mapped drives configured by applications running with administrator privileges. This may be the reason of the mapped network drive not showing issue. In this case, you can use the following workaround:

1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog. Type Regedit and press Enter key to open Registry Editor.
2. Locate and then right-click the registry subkey to create a new DWORD Value:

▶ HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

3. Name the new value EnableLinkedConnections and then right click it to modify the Value data to 1. This will enable the "administrator in Admin Approval Mode" user type and all other User Account Control (UAC) policies.

4. Click OK to save the new value and then exit Registry Editor. Then, restart the computer.

Method 2. Configure Proxy and SMB To Better Recognize the Network Drive

If the above method did not work, you could try the other two methods to see your Windows recognize the network drive better:

▶ Configure the Network Proxy Settings in Windows 11

1. Press Windows + I to open Settings. Then navigate to Network & Internet -> Proxy.

2. Here you can add a script to manually configure the proxy so it can be managed easily.

▶ Turn on the SMB Features in Windows 11

1. Type programs and features in the search box and click Turn Windows features on or off to open Windows Features window.

2. Scroll down to find the features that started with SMB. You need to make sure that all SMB folders were checked here. Then click OK.

3. Reboot the computer so that the changes can take effect.

Method 3. Fix Mapped Network Drive Not Showing All Files/Folders

If your Windows 11 mapped drive not showing all folders/files, the reason may be that the folders/files are hidden on the NAS drives, including mapped network drive and network drive. To show them normally, please refer to the following step.

1. Press Windows + E to open File Explorer.
2. Click on View tab -> Show -> Hidden Items.

Once you have finished this process, all hidden drives, folders, and files should appear in their original location.

Quick Fix for Windows 11 Mapped Drive Not Showing Up

As mentioned earlier, many users map their folders, files or drives just to be able to access files on one computer from another. If you're stuck with a mapped network drive not showing up, don't get frustrated, here's a quicker solution.

You can use powerful software to sync drives/files/folders from one computer to another without mapping them. AOMEI Backupper Standard allows you to sync files/folders to multiple destinations, including network drive, NAS, cloud storage, external drive, etc.

It also enables you to create automatic sync tasks with its Schedule feature, which can help you get changes regularly by syncing files at daily/weekly/monthly. Also, it allows you to sync multiple folders simultaneously, saving you from repetitive work.

Steps to Access Files/Folders Without Mapping the Drive

In this section, I'll show you how to sync folders on your computer to a network location so you can access files from one computer to another. Before you start, you need to do some preparations:

¤ Create a new folder on the target Windows 11 computer where you originally wanted to map the drive and open Windows 11 File Sharing first. Change the folder network access to Everyone.
¤ Download AOMEI Backupper Standard on your source Windows 11 computer.

1. Launch AOMEI Backupper, choose Sync -> Basic Sync subsequently.

Tips✍: Three other synchronization modes are also available in advanced editions.
✬ Real-Time Sync: This mode will automatically monitor the source directories that need to be synchronized in real time.
✬ Mirror Sync: This mode always keeps the files between the source directory and the target directory the same. Any changed files in the target will be deleted.
✬ Two-Way Sync: Any changes in the source or destination directory will be synced with each other.

2. Click +Add Folder and select the folder you want to access on the other computer.

3. Click Add Share or NAS Devices and enter the destination network path for the new folder you created earlier. Type username and password if it prompts.

4. Confirm all your settings and click on Start Sync to perform the operation.

Besides syncing files to a network location, syncing or backing up files to the cloud is also a good way to keep data safe. AOMEI Backupper provides users with their own cloud drive - AOMEI Cloud. When you you sign up for an AOMEI account, it will give you 1TB of free storage space for 15 days.

Final Words

This article has provided you with 3 methods to fix the issue that Windows 11 mapped hard drive not showing up. You can choose to fix this problem or choose another quick method provided in this article to access files on other computers.

AOMEI Backupper can provide comprehensive protection for your computer, including operating system and data. If you have used it to create a system backup in advance, you can quickly restore your Windows 11 computer to normal after you encounter some system problems, such as Windows 11 stuck on preparing Windows.