The 4 best network drive apps for Mac (2026)
If your NAS share vanishes every time your Mac sleeps or changes Wi-Fi, one of these apps will mount it again for you — or you can script a fix with what macOS already has.
The best network drive apps for Mac in 2026 are AutoMounter (best for set-and-forget auto-mounting of NAS shares), ConnectMeNow (best free option), Mountain Duck (best for SFTP, S3 and cloud storage alongside SMB) and Shareline (best for seeing each share’s health and recovering dropped or frozen shares). If you only connect to one server and it rarely drops, macOS’s built-in Connect to Server plus a Login Items entry is enough.
Disclosure: We make Shareline, one of the apps on this list. We’ve tried to place it where it genuinely fits and to describe every app fairly, using each developer’s own site. Prices and features checked 28 October 2026.
Why does my Mac’s network drive keep disconnecting?
macOS mounts a network share once, when you ask it to. It doesn’t promise to keep it mounted. When the Mac sleeps, moves between Wi-Fi and Ethernet, connects to a VPN, or the NAS restarts for an update, the connection breaks. Sometimes the share disappears from Finder; sometimes it stays listed but stops answering, and Finder shows a spinning wheel until it times out. Then you go back to Command-K and type the address again.
The apps below fix that by watching your shares and mounting them again when the server is reachable. They differ in which protocols they speak, how much they show you, and what they cost.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Price model | Runs locally? | Requires |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AutoMounter | Set-and-forget NAS mounting | Paid (App Store $9.99 + optional Pro pack) | Yes | macOS 13.5+ |
| ConnectMeNow | Free menu bar mounting | Free (donations welcome) | Yes | See developer page |
| Mountain Duck | SFTP, S3 and cloud as drives | One-time license per major version | Yes (connects to your servers/clouds) | macOS 13+ |
| Shareline | Share health and recovery | One-time purchase | Yes (talks only to your servers) | macOS 14+ |
Prices and features checked 28 October 2026 on each developer’s website. Check the official site before you buy.
1. AutoMounter: best for set-and-forget NAS mounting
AutoMounter from Pixeleyes, a New Zealand developer, has been around since 2016 and does one job: it discovers network shares and mounts them automatically, so they’re there when you need them. The Mac App Store listing describes it as remounting shares quickly if they unmount and mounting them as soon as the NAS is available. Version 1.14.1 added support for macOS 27.
Standout features
- SMB (including CIFS and DFS), NFS and WebDAV; AFP on macOS versions that still include it; FTP read-only.
- Share discovery on the local network, so you can pick servers instead of typing addresses.
- Remounts when you switch between Wi-Fi and Ethernet, with an option to remount when the network interface changes (useful with VPNs).
- Wake on LAN to wake a sleeping server when needed.
- Pro Settings: run scripts on mount, open apps and files, and custom mount points.
Limits
- The extra automation is a separate in-app purchase.
- AFP is disabled on macOS 27 and later, because Apple removed the AFP client.
- It focuses on keeping shares mounted rather than showing connection quality or history.
Price: $9.99 on the US Mac App Store, plus the optional $3.99 Pro Settings Pack. A direct version is also sold from the developer’s site.
Who it’s for: home and small-office NAS users who want shares to be there after every wake without thinking about it.
2. ConnectMeNow: best free option
ConnectMeNow from Tweaking4All is a free menu bar utility for mounting network shares and opening SSH sessions. It’s more of a power-user tool than AutoMounter, with lots of per-share options. The latest stable release is 4.0.18 from April 2024, and betas have continued through 2026 (4.0.28 beta, October 2026). It’s also available as a Homebrew cask.
Standout features
- SMB/CIFS, NFS, AFP, WebDAV and FTP (read-only), plus SSH shortcuts; SSHFS if you install macFUSE.
- Auto-mount chosen shares when the app starts, which usually means at login.
- Remount after a network change, optionally only on a specific network (identified by its default gateway).
- Remount shares that were connected before sleep and are missing after wake.
Limits
- The newest builds are betas; the last stable release is from 2024.
- The settings are dense, and the developer page is long; expect some reading.
- No connection-quality or frozen-share monitoring that we could find on the developer’s page.
Price: free, with optional donations.
Who it’s for: anyone who wants auto-mounting without paying and doesn’t mind a busier interface.
3. Mountain Duck: best for SFTP, S3 and cloud storage as drives
Mountain Duck from iterate GmbH, the makers of Cyberduck, mounts remote servers and cloud storage as disks in Finder. It covers far more than file servers: SFTP, FTP, WebDAV and SMB, plus Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, SharePoint, Box and Nextcloud. Version 5.3 is current.
Standout features
- Smart synchronization: browse everything without downloading it, open files to cache them, and mark folders to keep offline.
- Changes upload in the background when a connection is available.
- Integrates with Finder through Apple’s File Provider extension.
- Also runs on Windows, if you work across both.
Limits
- The license covers one major version; future major versions are discounted upgrades, not free.
- Overkill if all you have is a NAS on your home network.
Price: a per-user license for a major version, bought direct or from the Mac App Store. The site shows prices after you choose a currency.
Who it’s for: developers, web teams and anyone who wants SFTP servers and cloud buckets to behave like drives.
4. Shareline: best for share health and recovering dropped or frozen shares
Shareline is our app. It’s a menu bar app that keeps your file server shares mounted, like AutoMounter, but puts more weight on showing you what’s going on. Each share gets a tile with a status light, a latency trace from the last few minutes, a free-space ring and buttons to open or eject it. It mounts through Apple’s own framework, so a share that works in Finder’s Connect to Server works in Shareline.
Standout features
- SMB, NFS and WebDAV over HTTP or HTTPS; AFP where macOS still supports it.
- Live server checks: a quick TCP handshake every few seconds measures latency, and two misses in a row mark the server offline. No data is read.
- Automatic reconnects when the server returns, after wake, or when the network changes. Retries start after 5 seconds and double up to a ceiling you set; a wrong password stops retries instead of locking your account.
- Frozen-share detection: if a mounted share stops answering, Shareline flags it before Finder spins and can force-eject it.
- Profiles (called routes in the app) for Office, Home or VPN, switched from the menu bar.
- Notifications when a share drops and recovers, an activity log, Keychain password storage and Bonjour server discovery.
What it doesn’t do
- No SFTP, FTP, S3 or cloud storage. If that’s what you need, Mountain Duck fits better.
- No offline caching or sync; it mounts real network volumes.
- It can’t switch profiles automatically by Wi-Fi network name, because reading it needs location access.
- No Wake on LAN for sleeping servers.
- AFP won’t work on macOS 27 or later, which no longer includes an AFP client.
- It never ejects volumes you mounted elsewhere; those are only watched.
Price: one-time purchase, no subscription, no account: ₹999 for 1 Mac, ₹1,699 for 3, ₹2,299 for 5. Free updates and a 14-day refund.
Who it’s for: people whose shares drop often enough that they want to see why, and teams that move between office, home and VPN.
The built-in option: Connect to Server, Login Items and Terminal
macOS can mount SMB, NFS and WebDAV shares on its own (AFP too, up to macOS 26 Tahoe). It just won’t reconnect them for you after a drop.
Connect to Server
In Finder, choose Go › Connect to Server (Command-K), type an address such as smb://nas.local/Projects and click Connect. Click the + button to save it to Favorite Servers. When asked, choose to remember the password in your keychain so you aren’t prompted every time.
Mount at login
With the share mounted, open System Settings › General › Login Items (called Login Items & Extensions on macOS 15 Sequoia and later). Click + under “Open at Login” and choose the mounted volume. macOS will try to mount it each time you log in. It won’t help after sleep or a network change, though.
Terminal
To mount a share from a script or a Shortcuts “Run Shell Script” action, use open, which goes through the same path as Finder and uses your saved keychain password:
open 'smb://[email protected]/Projects'Or mount to a folder you choose with mount_smbfs (it prompts for the password if none is saved):
mkdir -p ~/NAS
mount_smbfs //[email protected]/Projects ~/NASTo see what’s currently mounted over the network:
mount | grep -E "smbfs|nfs|webdav"macOS also includes the autofs automounter, configured through /etc/auto_master and map files (see man auto_master). It mounts a share when a path is accessed, which can work well for NFS. It means editing system files with admin rights, and SMB passwords in map files are stored in plain text, so we’d only suggest it if you’re comfortable with that.
How we picked
- Mac-compatible and current. Each app has a 2026 release or update on its official site.
- Solves the reconnect problem or, for Mountain Duck, mounts storage that macOS can’t mount by itself.
- Native protocols first. We left out ExpanDrive because its site doesn’t list SMB as a mount protocol; it’s focused on cloud and SFTP.
- Prices from the developer. Where a US dollar price wasn’t shown, we describe the model instead.
- No scores or ratings. We describe what each app does and doesn’t do.
We make Shareline. We placed it fourth as a specialist for monitoring and recovery; AutoMounter is the longer-established auto-mounter and ConnectMeNow is free.
FAQ
Why does my Mac’s network drive keep disconnecting?
macOS mounts a share once and doesn’t remount it after sleep, a Wi-Fi or VPN change, or a server restart. An auto-mount app such as AutoMounter, ConnectMeNow or Shareline watches the server and mounts the share again when it’s reachable.
How do I auto mount a network drive on a Mac?
Mount it once with Finder › Go › Connect to Server, save the password in your keychain, then add the mounted volume to System Settings › General › Login Items. That mounts it at login. To remount after sleep or network changes, you need an app or a script.
Is there a free app to auto mount network shares on Mac?
Yes. ConnectMeNow is free and can mount shares at login, after a network change and after wake. macOS’s Login Items and the open command are free too, but they don’t reconnect after sleep.
What is the best network drive app for Mac?
For set-and-forget NAS mounting, AutoMounter. For free, ConnectMeNow. For SFTP, S3 and cloud storage, Mountain Duck. For seeing share health and recovering dropped or frozen shares, Shareline.
Can my Mac still connect to AFP shares?
Up to macOS 26 Tahoe, yes. Apple deprecated AFP in macOS 15.5 and removed the AFP client in macOS 27, so switch your server to SMB if you can.
How do I mount an SMB share from Terminal on a Mac?
Run open 'smb://user@server/share' to mount it the way Finder does, or create a folder and run mount_smbfs //user@server/share followed by the folder path.
Key takeaways
- macOS mounts shares but doesn’t reconnect them after sleep, network changes or server restarts.
- AutoMounter is the established paid auto-mounter; ConnectMeNow is the free one.
- Mountain Duck is the pick for SFTP, S3 and cloud storage rather than NAS shares.
- Shareline adds live health, frozen-share detection and history on top of reconnecting.
- AFP is gone in macOS 27; use SMB for anything new.