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What's the best way to share files between Macs and PCs? To be clear, I'm talking about high volume transfer (hundreds of megabytes, perhaps even gigabytes, across many files) and transfer over a LAN.

I though about FTP, but have read that the FTP protocal doesn't inherently specify any kind of transfer error detection, which would surely be a necessity for transfering large numbers of large files. In my case, accuracy wins out over speed.

Normally, I'd use HFS, but I'm not sure that this is practical for large numbers of files (since there is no "download all files" link on the recipient front-end)

Other options would be VNC variants but I'm assuming that, are aimed more at sending one or two files at a time, rather than one or two thousand.

Incidentally, the application need not be portable.

Anyone have any thoughts?

There are a couple of different ways I would use to achieve this. One of them is to use your suggestion of HFS. While HFS doesn't have a "Download All" option, if you use Mozilla Firefox, along with the excellent DownloadThemAll, you can very easily achieve this functionality. DownloadThemAll is a superb download manager that sits in Firefox and allows resume/pause, and also accelerates downloads by requesting multiple chunks, and of course, as the name suggests, there is a big shiny button to download all links on a page

However my preferred method, and one we use in our technical department, is to use BitTorrent. If your first thought is how much trouble it is to set up a tracker etc etc, then don't worry. The excellent uTorrent has a very simple, easy to use tracker built in. Check out the guides on their website and their FAQ for details on how to do this.

The benefits of the BitTorrent method are:-

• * BT is optimised for high speed transfer of large and numerous amounts of data

• * It has built in error checking, so you can be assured that your download is accurate and not corrupt

• * There are many clients for many platforms, so you should have no problem transferring between different OS's if neccessary

The only down side (if you can call it one) is that you need some initial transfer mechanism to get the torrent file to the other PC in the first place, but I suspect this would be a no-brainer

And to top it all off, at least on Windows machines, you have a free, portable solution, for super fast, 100% accurate, large file transfers!!

@Jeronimo

Funnily enough, I briefly thought about bit torrent but dismissed it because I wasn't sure how to set up a local torrent. I do actually use uTorrent and have seen that there is even the DHT feature allowing you to connect directly with peers without going through the central server. Perhaps I dismissed it too quickly.

Another possibility I've discovered seems rather more involved; using the open source file server Samba. However, I'm REALLY reluctant to go down this route.

Thanks for your response.

try this:

Gemulator Explorer
http://www.emulators.com/explorer.htm

HFV Explorer
lets you access mac disks under windows

unfortunately HFV homepage is no longer available
but download is available
http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/pc2mac.html
(win software/HFVexplorer/third party download)

Darkbee wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:12 pm What's the best way to share files between Macs and PCs? To be clear, I'm talking about high volume transfer (hundreds of megabytes, perhaps even gigabytes, across many files) and transfer over a LAN.

Old thread update: I tested this today using BeeBeep. And not just sending individual files - sharing whole directories. Worked great.

I'm looking into this a bit as I want to share files across LAN only and not use internet data. This means sites like SnapDrop, ShareDrop, etc. will not make this list. Must be cross-platform across PCs and mobile devices.

I came across a few options:

* LanXchange - Old, but works very well. Requires Java. Can use jPortable and Java Portable Launcher to launch the included .jar on Windows. If you want me to write a tutorial for this, let me know. Also has an Android app on the Play Store and F-Droid.
* Photon - Was recommended on Reddit. Supports many platforms including Android, Linux and MacOS. Is a relatively new app and is in active development. Probably not portable though.
* LANDrop - Supports many platforms including Android, Linux and MacOS. Development has stalled.
* NitroShare - Much like LANDrop, supports many platforms including Android, Linux and MacOS. Android support is spotty from what I've read over on Github. Development has also stalled.
* LANShare, D-LAN - Windows and Linux only.
* KDE Connect - According to a Reddit thread, KDE Connect runs on LAN-only as well. Has a lot more functionality other than file transfers. Haven't tested this one yet.
* LocalSend - The interface for this one resembles SnapDrop and ShareDrop. Supports many platforms including Android, Linux and MacOS. Another recent app that is in active development and worth looking into.
* FlyingCarpet - Another cross-platform file sending app. This one sets up a local wifi hotspot to send the files locally. Mentioned by MakoSoft in this topic - viewtopic.php?p=105108. Haven't tested this one yet.

If I come across any more, I'll update this list.

Update

I can recommend LanXchange even if it is a little old. Very fast transfers and simple interface. LocalSend also worked pretty decently as well. In LocalSend, to send files you have to select the files you want to send in the app, then select the recipient you want to send them to. The recipient then gets a prompt and the recipient can either decline or accept the files. In LanXchange, you simply can select the files you want to send and the receiver can automatically see the files and choose to download them, no need to select the recipient. Some might like LocalSend's extra step for privacy reasons. If you can't get LanXChange working, I would recommend LocalSend. Photon also worked similarly to LocalSend, but LocalSend was less buggy in my limited testing.

Some others I tested but were not very good include LANDrop (transfer was very slow and had a laggy interface on the Android side when transferring files) and NitroShare (had trouble detecting the Android device).

FYI and although this is cloud-based, I use Telegram's builtin "Saved Messages" folder for my casual needs in this area -- it has effectively replaced Dropbox for me.

Not only can it store up to 2GB, it is portable on Windows and readily available everywhere.