How to map a network drive using PowerShell

In computing, the purpose of a network is to provide resources at a centralized point so that the network members can access it. Similarly, the files in a network are placed at a centralized location. In networking terms, these centralized locations are referred to as network drives. For ease of network users, these drives are made available locally on the machines of the users. The phenomenon of making a network drive available at local computers is known as mapping. In this article, we have enlisted the possible ways to map network drives in PowerShell.

How network drive is mapped using PowerShell

The steps to map a network drive using PowerShell are provided below and are recommended to perform carefully.

Step 1: Firstly, open the PowerShell by searching it from the search box of the windows:

Step 2: Once it is opened, you can use the command stated below:

The New-PSDrive cmdlet of PowerShell creates a new PowerShell drive and is used here to map the network drive. The above command contains the following options of New-PSDrive cmdlet:

Name: The letter of drive that is being created to map network-drive.

PSProvider: The PSProvider is a kind of software that converts several actions into an understandable manner of provider.

Root: It contains the device name and location of the remote computer

For example, the command written below maps the \\ADNAN\Users\NEW to the local computer and the drive is set to “L“:

As the drive is mapped, you can verify the addition by using the Get-PSDrive cmdlet of PowerShell as we have used as shown below.

Moreover, you can get the list of the content inside the drive with the help of the Get-ChildItem cmdlet as shown below:

How to unmap a network drive

If you no longer require the network drive on your PC, you must un-map that drive. Firstly, get the list of mapped drives with the help of the command provided below:

The output shows that the S: drive is the network drive mapped currently:

Once you have noted down the drive letter that you want to un-map. You can use the Remove-PSDrive command to remove the mapped devices. In our case, the following command removes the drive with a letter (S:). For verification, you may execute the Get-PSDrive cmdlet to look for the S drive

Conclusion

In this modern tech era, networks have a crucial role in getting things done in a shared resource environment. Several resources like printers, scanners, internet, storage are shared in a network to manage time and cost. Using PowerShell, this article shows how to map a network drive. Throughout this article, we provide details about how to map a network drive on your computer. A resourceful command-line tool named PowerShell is utilized to map a network drive on the computer. Moreover, you would also get the direction to remove a mapped drive from your computer as well.