When copying files across PCs on a network sometimes it is easier to set up a shared folder on your Windows machine and copy it across that way instead of plugging in USB drives etc. That works well enough but if you forget to turn it off and have shared folders deep within directories it can be hard to find where they are and worse still may make it easy for others to get access to your machine.

Luckily there’s an easy way to find these shared folders via Computer Management. In the File Explorer right click on the PC icon and select Manage – this will open the Computer Management application. From the left panel go to System Tools, Shared Folders and finally Shares which lists all the shared folder currently set up on the machine.

Computer Management makes it easy to find all those hidden shared folders.

In the above image I’d created a shared folder called Source which is highlighted. Handily it also shows the Folder Path so that you know its exact location but if all you want to do is remove it that is really easy – simply right click on the folder and select Stop Sharing and it’ll be removed from the list (not deleted from your drive… it’s still there).

I’m routinely copying large files between computers and forgetting to clean up these shared folders so knowing that I can now do it all from the once place is a big time saver that I wished I knew about earlier. 🙂