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How-to: Connect Your SkyDrive In Windows Explorer

67 comments

Your web drive SkyDrive offers 25 GB of free storage that you can use from everywhere.  However, uploading and accessing its contents from your web browser can get tiring.  Unless you connect Windows Live SkyDrive to Windows Explorer.

After going through the following how-to, you will be able to access your SkyDrive folders from a mapped network drive, e.g. drive “S:\\”.  You do not need any extra software to do this.

  1. Open your browser, and navigate to http://skydrive.live.com/.
  2. Sign in with your Windows Live ID.
  3. Copy the UID part of the displayed URL, like: https://cid-1234567890abcdef.skydrive.live.com/ .
  4. Leave SkyDrive open, and take note of one of your folder names.
  5. Open Windows Explorer.
  6. On the left sidebar, right-click on Network.  Choose Map network drive.
  7. Enter the following URL: \\docs.live.net@SSL\\1234567890abcdef\\XYZ
  8. Replace “XYZ” with the folder name you noted and that you want to map.
    Note: Replace “Documents” with “^2Documents”, and “Public” with “^2Public”.
  9. Choose a drive letter, and submit the dialog.
  10. You will be prompted for your Windows Live ID.  Sign in.
  11. Then, you can access all the files and subfolders within your SkyDrive folder, including copying and pasting.  You can even open and edit files directly!

67 comments

  4. If I use \docs.live.net@SSL\cid-YourNumbers.skydrive.live.com\ it connects to my computer but with an empty folder and no space available to place files into. Maybe this can help somehow in understanding the link. I then tried place ^2 with a file name or without ^2 but that didnt work.

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  6. its not working for me (using Windows xp)
    created a test folder on skydrive “test” and tried mapping the network drive
    \docs.live.net@SSL\a3b490859849517a\test

    errors with \docs.live.net@SSL\a3b490859849517a\test could not be found
    anybody found a workaround for this

  7. Mapping SkyDrive folders works fine for me on Windows 7. Did have problems on reboot when I specified “reconnect at logon” as I used different credentials. Some of the reported problems may come from not specifying a SkyDrive folder correctly. The SkyDrive folder name in the Map Network Drive dialog may contain spaces. It must be an existing folder and be spelled correctly.

  8. The path is wrong. If you have Office2010 installed go to Word, take a doc then go to file-share and choose sky drive. use your live account to log on and say “save as..” you will then get save as dialog and in the address bar you will see the right path, bingo!

    I had some issues as described above but now it is working. The path looks something like this:

    https://xxxx.docs.live.net/%IDasabove%/Folder

    xxxx seems to be something auto-generated so it might differ from account to account.
    %IDasabove% is the id you will see as described at the beginning of the article

    I made test on Win7 and it also worked without having any Office installed at all….

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  11. Windows 7 users and those getting repeated login requests: One likely source of trouble is your firewall. In Windows 7 the firewall settings are different and more secure than in Vista. One workaround: Before you map your SkyDrive folder or album, log in to your Live account, TURN OFF the firewall (Control Panel – Security – Firewall). Map the drive, there may be a couple of login requests. Once it maps and the folder is displayed, go back and turn your firewall back ON.

  13. Not working. Same prob as listed above (win 7)
    * if mapped to the root loc then nothing shows up
    * when trying to map to ^Documents, the connection doesnt succeed

  14. Not working for me too. Keep asking me password again and again and never connects. I manage to connect to root i.e., \docs.live.net@SSL\1234567890abcdef but was showing nothing under it. Please help.

  17. I got mine to work but i was not able to see any folders. I have found a work around so I thought that I would share. Instead of \docs.live.net@SSL\1234567890abcdef\XYZ use \7whmzh.docs.live.net\1234567890abcdef\XYZ. This works for my folders in Skydrive, however I am not able to view all the folders in the root directory of Skydrive. Hope this helps.

  18. Change \docs.live.net@SSL\1234567890abcdef\XYZ to \7whmzh.docs.live.net\1234567890abcdef\XYZ. I am unable to view the root directory of Skydrive, however, but this worked for me to view items in the folders and upload items as well so I figured I would share.

  19. Solution: use application called “SkyDriveSimpleViewer” from http://skydrivesimpleviewer.codeplex.com/

    Run it in a command line. You have to run it like this: DumpUrls.exe username@domain.com password

    The utility will then give you the complete path to all folders it finds in your SkyDrive. Simply copy the link to the desired path and then use that link to map your drive in Windows.

    You will be asked to enter your username and password by Windows and then you’re done 🙂

  20. Its not work for me in window xp….error the network path \docs.live.net@ssl\1234567890abcdef\^2public could not be found
    Help me for this

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