Access Public folder on Mac

My Cloud Home My Cloud Home Single Bay
1

Hello,

I have bought a WD My Cloud Home almost 2 years ago and I have been using it on my windows laptops without any problem, using the private users share to be able to access the folders outside the house and through samba to be able to access the Public folder (on this I only put some photos and videos to be able to access it from different devices inside the local network).

Last week I have bought a Mac and I am having issues accessing the Public folder through samba.
The folder is available and I can access it without any problem from a windows laptop but not from the Mac.
I have installed WD Discovery and I am able to access my user’s share space, the issue is only on the Public folder through samba.

I have already tried different options to connect to the folder (Going to Finder and clicking on Go and “Connect to Server”), first through the device name:

smb://MYCLOUD-CZYYC8/Public

And then using the respective IP address:

smb://192.XXX.XX.X/Public

But unfortunately, a window is always prompted asking for credentials to access the server. I have already tried different combinations and without any positive result.

Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 18.23.36
Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 18.23.36289×238 34.7 KB

Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 18.24.11
Screenshot 2021-05-27 at 18.24.11456×302 31.4 KB

When I choose to connect as “Guest” the window just vibrates and doesn’t process with the login.

Should I insert any specific credentials to access the Public folder?

Thanks for your help!

2

Please see the following article:

Connecting to the Public Share using macOS Big Sur 11.3.x may result in the following error when SMB connection are not supported:
There was a problem connecting to the server “MYCLOUD-XXXXXX”.
The server may not exist or it is unavailable at this time. Check the server name or IP address, check your network connection, and then try again.

In this case, please use the following Common Internet File System (cifs) connection:

cifs://guest:guest@MYCLOUD-XXXXXX/Public

  • Where XXXXXX is the last 6 digits of the My Cloud Home serial number
    cifs://guest:guest@/Public
3

Thank you so much for the quick reply @cme

The cifs connection fixed the issue, finally, I have access to the Public folder from all my laptops.

:+1:

4

Oddly when accessing the Public volume on Mac OS, I can access all files, in the entire directory hierarchy from Terminal/command line. Not from the Finder though.
In macOS Sonoma or Catalina, the above cifs method to connect to Public works, sort of. I used my owner: group, as listed by the unix ls -l command output, instead of guest:guest:
e.g.:
ls -l /Volumes/Public

drwx------@ 1 dgday staff 16384 Sep 13 2023 MiscScans
drwx------@ 1 dgday staff 16384 Apr 11 18:14 Music
(Just a subset of all the folders there)

then
cifs://dgday:staff@MYCLOUD-1EHV7C/Public
The above is accepted.

The Finder Connect to Server command is accepted.
However in the Finder, if I double click folder in the Public share, it tells me no permission to see its contents.(as well as a red circle with a dash it on the folder icon, indicating some restrictions)
Is there a way to make access from the Finder the same as from the command line?

5

The above solution KBA3009 is slightly dated and should be superseded by the new KBA a_id/30614.

macOS

IMPORTANT:

The Public Share is used for Windows File and Time Machine Backup.
It was not meant to be used as LAN (Local Area Network) storage for Windows or macOS.

  • Common Internet File System (CIFS) tag must be used to connect to the Public Share on macOS.
  • It must be made as the macOS Guest user.