Shares are a special function of the External Storage Tool that can be accessed by authorized users in your home network. Creating specific shares allows you to control and manage which folders are accessible to certain people who access your external storage.

External Storage is displayed as USB Storage in older firmware versions of Linksys Smart WiFi routers.

IMPORTANT: If you are using a previously configured hard drive, you will receive the following message. Click Continue to use the new USB features. This will not delete any data on the drive.
 

1. Log in to the router's web interface.

2. Click on the External Storage.
 

3. Click on the Folder Access tab.
 

IMPORTANT: The following steps will be applicable only if the Folder Access is turned ON. All folders in your External Storage will be accessible by both admin (read and write) and guest (read-only) users.

4. Click Show all shares.
 

5. Click Create new share.
 

You cannot create folders on the storage device using your Linksys cloud account. You need to manually create folders on the storage device using your computer then link the folder to share afterwards.
 

To create a new folder, access the drive by going to Start > run > then enter “\\192.168.1.1” (default IP address of the router). If prompted for username and password, the username is admin and the password would be your router’s password (default is admin). Once you have accessed the drive, create the folders that you need.

6. Choose from either option below:

a. Specific Folders - Select the specific folder that you want to share. In the example below, the Settings folder was selected to be shared.
 

b. All Folders - Tick on Share entire storage device to allow access to all files on your drive.
 

7. Click Ok.

Adding an Authorized user

By adding authorized users, you can specify access to certain folders in the External Storage. You can limit access to some folders in your shared drive as well. For example, admin users can access all folders while guest users can only access media folders.

1. Add a username and enter your desired password.
 

2. Set Permissions then click Add User.
 

You will see the newly added user listed below the admin and guest users.
 

3. Click Apply.
 

Once the settings are saved, the Shares link will appear and you will be able to configure shares for that user.
 

Selecting existing share

Once your shares are already set up, you can now configure each authorized user to access them.

In this example, the authorized user that is being configured is Kids.

1. Click Shares.
 

2. Click Add share.
 

3. Select and tick the specific folder that you want to share then click OK.
 

This procedure will allow the user to access specific folders on your External Storage.

4. Click Apply then click Ok.

You can now map the External Storage on your computers for easy access to your network drive. To learn how to do this, click the link below:
 

How to map a drive on your Linksys Smart WiFi Router

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