Easiest way to transfer files between two PCs?

There's a lot of stuff I'd like to transfer from my desktop to my laptop, but unfortunately sneakernet is out, as my pen drive is too small and the desktop can't burn CDs. However, the machines are currently on the same 100 Mbps LAN, and I've got a couple yards of USB cable if that proves necessary.
What I'd like to know is: what's the fastest and easiest way of transferring the files? Should I use SSH? Should I create an NFS volume and put everything on that?

Don't tell me you've never even tried using samba?!
Easy as pie, if you go with "security = share" insetead of "security = user". Less secure of course.
Look at this samba stanza (my misc share...);
[misc]
comment = read and write
path = /home/pelle/share
public = yes
writable = yes
force group = users
force user = pelle
complicated!? I think not.
[edit]you would of course have to mount this in the client fstab like this;
//xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/misc /mnt/whatever cifs guest,ro
(or just use the kio/gnome-vfs smb:/xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx)[/edit]
Last edited by pelle.k (2007-06-03 15:33:44)

Similar Messages

Best way to transfer file between two web apps

I'm looking for some architectural suggestions. Seems like a simple problem, but I'm really struggling.
-- Problem:
We have two web servers, both running apps in JBoss. I need to pass a file of roughly 20MB from one server to the other, and get the other server to process it as soon as it receives it.
-- Details:
Seems simple enough... My plan was to write a web service to pass it. Our company is all onboard the SOA train. I wrote a service that encoded the file as a byte[] and passed it. Works amazing for small files, but throws an Axis OutOfMemory error when trying to base64 encode the file. I then looked at using attachments for web services, but dismissed that. It creates malformed XML since it treats the service as a multipart MIME message wraps the webservice inside. It quickly became messy and I couldn't get it working. Seemed to defeat the purpose of an XML service too.
I've considered just doing a HTTP POST of the file to the other server, but that's poorly documented and a bit of a hack way to do it. I also considered just dropping the file in a web accessible folder, then using a web service to pass a URL and get the other server to retrieve it via HTTP. Again, not a very nice solution.
Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

Kimos2 wrote:
I don't have access to run/configure services on these machines, so FTP is out. It has to be JVM to JVM. Even if I did, I'd have to worry about triggering JBoss to process the file right away after it had been dropped there. I know i could poll the directory or send a message to trigger the process, there'd be synchronization issues etc to work through and seems to introduce unneeded complication.Yes, I agree with that. Having been through the polling directories and grabbing partially uploaded files scenario ad nauseam. It's much worse with large files too.
Barring any suggestions I haven't thought of, I'll probably end up settling on the HTTP POST solution. My problem is that it's providing a service without a specification and is not self-describing. No WSDL file to pass to clients that plan on using it. I would do HTTP POST as well. I didn't understand the part about "without a specification". You do have a specification, don't you? Wasn't this it: "I need to pass a file of roughly 20MB from one server to the other, and get the other server to process it as soon as it receives it." Informal, yes, but I don't have a problem with that. Post it to a URL on the receiving server and set up the receiving server to do whatever it's supposed to do with the file.

Can you transfer files between two user accounts on the same macbook pro?

Can you transfer files between two user accounts on the same MacBook Pro?
Specifically, I used the Migration Assistant to move music and photos from my old PC to my new MacBook.
Somehow, I missed the fact that it was creating a new user account when it was doing this. So none of music and photos are in the user account I originally set-up. Instead, all these files are now in a different account.
I'd like to consolidate all my files on the one user account and delete the other one.
Is this possible and, if so, how do I do it?
Thank you.

you can crop files from one account to another using the Public Dropbox which every user account has. Log into the user that has the files you want to move, then drag the folder you want to the new users' dropbox:
I suggest a small scale test on a few files first before moving gigabytes of files.

Im new to Mac and wanted to know what is the easiest way to transfer files from a mac computer and mac extenal hardrive to windowns and vice versa?

Im new to Mac and wanted to know what is the easiest way to transfer files from a mac computer and mac extenal hardrive to windowns and vice versa?

For small amount of files, a regular USB stick or drive, it's already formatted with a MBR and FAT32 most likely which works both on PC's and Mac's.
External drives if you need more space.
However FAT (or Fat32 or MSDOS) has a 4GB file size limit. So if your transfering files bigger than that then you need to format it exFAT on the Windows machine.
Vista and Win 7 can do this, Windows XP one can download a free exFAT upgrade from Microsoft.
Mac's can read/write the MBR and FAT/exFAT (10.6.5 and later) formats, it's best to format it on the Windows machine, even though the Mac can format it too, it's better to do it on Windows then take it to the Mac to confirm.
Rack your brain here on it.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/16317478#16317478

Easiest Way to Share Files Between Users? -- Public, Shared, Drop Box.. .

We have five family members (and so five user accounts) using our Mac. What is the easiest way to copy files between / share files with / ... files from one user to the other?
Shared ... Public ... Drop Box ...
I do this so infrequently that I forget -- or have never figure it out properly.
Any advice would be great.
Thanks!

The Shared folder is fine, but anything a user puts there will be read-only to all other users. If other users want to be able to edit such a file they can make a copy of it and edit the copy. If you want all users to be able to edit one of your files without them having to make a copy of it first, you must change the file permissions to allow that.
There are a few ways to have new files automatically set so that others can write to them. Storing such files on an external hard drive on which file/folder ownership is set to be ignored is one way. You can also use ACLs - see this page for an example.

How to transfer file between two computers?

Hi,
I am student, and recently got an assigment to write a java program to transfer file between two computer. I tried to use sockets, but fails. Any suggestion?
Thanks
hol

I am student, and recently got an assigment to write a java program to transfer file between two computer. I tried to use sockets, but fails. Any suggestion?
Any suggestion?
My My My te hehe,I know you can put it on a floopy disk or a cd and then take that cd or floopy to the other computer to transfer the files.

How to transfer files between two Macs via Firewire cable?

I heard you can transfer selected files between two Macs running Tiger. I'm not talking about setting up a new Mac w. files from an older one, if that's different? Can someone enlighten me on this or point me to a "how-to" link? Thanks.

Yes, you pretty much just drag and drop or copy and paste depending on which way you like better. It is pretty much like connecting an external hard drive. Just find the files you want and copy them over to your other computer.
This is one of my favorite features from Macs. It's very simple to do and because it's Firewire even large files transfer over very quickly.

What's the easiest way to transfer files to new mac?

My first mac was a Macbook (purchased in August 2010) and I'm upgrading to the new 13" Macbook Pro with retina display. What is the easiest way to:
1) transfer files to the new laptop
2) delete files off my old macbook to share with a family member--possibly thinking of return to factory settings.
I have a 1TB external hard drive and I use the cloud on all of my devices (also have iPhone and iPad synched to the cloud).

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
1. The best way to transfer files from another computer is by using Migration Assistant > http://pondini.org/OSX/SetupLion.html Your new MacBook Pro will ask you to restore from another computer during its initial setup.
2. If you haven't got a lot of apps you installed, you can just create a new user and delete the old one, so you won't have to reinstall Mac OS X.
To do it, open System Preferences > Users and Groups (or Accounts), press the + button and create an admin user. Then, log in this user, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups, and remove the old account

Easiest way to transfer files larger than 4gb between mac and windows?

I just borrowed a windows laptop and formatted an external USB drive FAT32 and am able to transfer files from my Tiger OS Mac and the Windows 7 computer..but now I discover the maximum file size is 4GB. How could I transfer files (usually video) larger than that? Thanks for any help.

Set up a network and file sharing, or format the drive to Mac OS Extended and install the MacDrive trial on the PC, or format the drive to NTFS and install the NTFS-3G drivers on the Mac.
(56283)

Fastest way to transfer files between remote macs?

My brother and I share folders and various file types through ichat at the moment, but it's so slow, we are both on pretty fast networks (35/35MB and 50/8MB) i can mount a folder of his on my mac (we are in seperate towns) by putting our apple ID's into the apple extreme section (i think back to my mac) and we can share files that way, but im confused as to why the transfer rates are so slow, we get at best 32KBs. does anyone have any recommendations for a faster file transfer method between remote macs. Thank You.
P.s. as a joke i always say that the rate is so slow because i'm on Cablevision's Network and he's on the Verizon Network, lol.

One option you can use is File Dropper:
http://www.filedropper.com/
You copy the file to the site and it generates a link
that you can then copy and send off to the person
so that they can get the file.
Accepts files up to 5 gig I believe and is quite fast.

How do i transfer files between two macs over the net (FTP)

Hi,
Couldn't find a thread like this, apologies if its been discussed already recently, I'm trying to enable two iMacs both Intel, both running 10.4.10 to be able to swap files (quite large 350MB) over the net just using Tiger.
We both have .Mac accounts but the files only upload properly to our iDisk 1 out of 3 times and its getting annoying, I basically want my mate to be able to drag a file off my HD onto his via the net using no other programs just Tiger, is this possible?
If not, what's the best free program to use.
Thanks

You'll have to get an FTP client as the Finder only reads, not writes to an FTP server. I can't suggest a free one. You will also need to open your computers up to the world. If you don't know how to do that, search for Port Forwarding and your particular router. You'll have to open up port 21 for FTP.
Plain old FTP is not very secure, so you shouldn't leave it open all the time. SFTP is Secure FTP, and you can use Fugu to use it. You'll still need to set up Port forwarding, but you can pick whatever port number you want. Fugu lets you pick the port number. You should set up standard users on each machine and make a sftpTransfer folder in the /Users/Shared/ folder. This will allow each of you to access the files. sftp allows anyone to see the directory structure, but still maintains the permissions from OS X. So, as standard users, you can look into each other's Home folder, but you won't be able to get into the subfolders or transfer files to or from any unshared locations.
By the way, I wrote an entire post describing how to use sftp from the command line before I decided to look for a client app for you. Then I found Fugu and changed it all.
Edit:
I forgot to mention you must turn on Remote Login in the sharing pane, and you'll have to use port 22 as this is the only one Mac OS allows remote connections on.
Message was edited by: Barney-15E

What's the easiest way to transfer files from an old Mac to a new one?

Alright, when I originally purchased my Macbook Pro in 2006 - I had no intentions on replacing for many, many years to come. However, purchased the 17", to have more screen space for design, and that career sort of fell through. I don't have a need for such a large display, and it gets very heavy when carrying it around. I've recently decided to opt for the 13" Macbook. Now my question is, what is the easiest, fastest, and safest was to transfer the files that I do want, from the old to the new? I considered buying an external hard-drive? And for that matter, once I do get everything transferred - does Mac offer anything where I can basically set the old on back to factory defaults?
Help is much appreciated.

In addition..........
If you have a High-speed connection, the easiest & fastest way is through AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) or any IM that has file transfers.
iChat has the same ability of transferring large files as AIM.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=150934
Adium has file transfers.
Yahoo Messenger has file transfers.
Both computers must use the same IM program for file transfers.

What is the easiest way to transfer preferences between accounts?

In my living room, I have a MacBook Pro that I use as a media center of sorts (it's nice not having to use the TV as a display when it's not wanted). I've been using it logged into my admin account, but recently I enabled FileVault2 encryption because of a job requirement (the laptop belongs to my employer), and so automatic login has been disabled. Not only Elana, but the babysitters use it, so I'm thinking that I need to create a standard account for them. The problem is that I have iTunes music library, EyeTV, and other settings associated with that admin account (although the music and videos themselves reside on an external FireWire hard disk).
I can't change that admin account to a standard account can I? If not, how can I easily transfer the settings and even have the music shared between the two accounts?

You could just create a new Admin account and then change the other back to standard. However, you would have to disable filevault, wait for it to decrypt, then enable it again so you could give that new account the ability to decrypt the hard drive.
But, you're gonna have to do that anyway for whatever account you create. There doesn't appear to be a way to enable new users to decrypt the hard drive. It has to be set up when you encrypt: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4790

Easiest way to transfer files from Mac to Mac?

I have an external HD, but having some problems!
Is there any other ways, easier ways?
Connect them via a router?

It depends on what kind of data.
Document files alone you can transfer via any medium, as long as the applications which open the same documents are compatible with both Macs.
Applications are limited to the license agreement enforcement of the said application. Some are limited to scattered preference or font files.
Moving operating system level data between PowerPC and Intel Macs, see this tip:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=435350&tstart=0
Moving between Intel and Intel Mac, or PowerPC and PowerPC Mac, the Migration or Setup Assistant can help:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1554
Depending on the size of the file, and the network strength, you can often move files using a small network:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1433
What problems are you having by hard drive? How full is the hard drive?
How big is the hard drive? Which Mac models and operating system are they using?

Easiest way to transfer files over web

Hi,
i am looking to write a prog that can upload files to a user, but i want there to be no need for specialised progs on the downloading pc (i.e. only mirc, browser etc) rather than a java compnent.
does anyone know of any simple way that java can act as a simple uploading server?
Many thanks

"As far as I know when the file goes from the server to the user it's called download and when the file goes from the user/client to the server it's called upload."
its the program thats uploading, and the client pc thats downloading yes.
The headers bit is all very well, but how do i make the program work as a server, this is the problem.
The program is not an applet.
The problem is getting it so that i can "browse" to the machine that the prog is running on and download a file when needed.
So the issue is, how do i get it so that if i type
http:\\127.0.0.1\test
in the address bar that a certain directory tress is shown browsable, and files downloadable
sorry if i'm not being very clear.
Mnay thanks

Easiest way to transfer files between two PCs?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for