How to use Solid Explorer app to access SMB network shares from an Android device
There are many File Managers/File Explorers on the Google Play Store, but I wanted to easily access the Samba share on my server while on my home network. Solid Explorer is the solution I went with and it works well, so here is a quick guide to setting it up.
Table of Contents
I used Android 12 when making the guide, the steps to make this work may be different if you’re using an older version of Android. (But most likely will be the same or similar.) As of 2025, I can confirm this process is still identical on Android 14.
Also, this guide assumes you already have an existing SMB share accessible in your home network, and you’re just trying to access it via Solid Explorer. If necessary, see this blog post on how to create SMB shares on a Linux server.
About Solid Explorer
Solid Explorer by Neatbytes is a powerful, easy to use file manager for Android devices lets you connect to cloud storage and network folders including (among others) Google Drive, Dropbox, S/FTP, and for our purposes, SMB shares. By connecting an SMB share to Solid Explorer, you can easily interact with server files using a slick GUI and transfer files between server and device. Solid Explorer can be downloaded from the Google Play Store for free.
Connect Solid Explorer to SMB share
First, make sure you’re on the same Wi-Fi network as the SMB share you want to access in Solid Explorer. (Setting this up to be available from outside the home network is possible, but beyond the scope of this article. But this might interest you.)
Open the Solid Explorer app and tap the hamburger menu at the top-left to bring up the menu, then tap the 3-dots and choose Storage manager.
In Storage manager, tap the Plus (+) button to add a new connection.
In the Network Connection Wizard, choose LAN / SMB and tap Next.
You should see any SMB shares in your network under server details, choose one and tap Next.
Choose your authentication method and tap Next. (I suggest using Username and password unless you have properly configured the SMB share for guest access, otherwise you may experience permissions issues.)
If you chose Username and password authentication, you’ll be prompted for the login info. Enter it and tap Next.
On the next screen, under Set advanced, choose Yes and tap Next.
For Protocol version choose the recommended SMB 2, then tap Next. On the next screen choose whether to use encryption (if your SMB share is encrypted) and tap Next.
You’ll get to review your settings, if everything is correct tap Next.
On the following screen, tap the big Connect button.
If everything is properly configured, the button will turn green with a checkmark. Tap Finish.
You’ll see your server under Storage manager. Tap the back arrow (<-) to go back to the menu.
You should see the SMB share among the options under Storages.
You’re done! Now you can easily access your SMB shares from your Android device with Solid Explorer, and it even has built-in media players, image viewer and text editor.
Transferring files via Solid Explorer
Transferring files between your Android device and SMB shares is done by using panes. If you swipe left and right on your phone or tablet’s touchscreen, you’ll switch to a different pane, and you can navigate to different directories on each pane. Navigate to an SMB share on one pane, and to one of your device’s internal directories on the other pane.
To transfer between device and share, tap a file and hold for a moment to select it. You can tap additional files to select them as well. Then tap on the three dots (…) on the bottom menu, then choose Transfer from the options.
A pop-up will show the destination of the file transfer, tap either Copy to… or Move to… (which removes it from the source directory) to begin the transfer.
You’ll see a circlular progress bar on the bottom right, when the transfer is done it turns into a green checkmark.
References
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