What is network storage in Samsung My Files?

Last reviewed: September 24, 2026 · Markdown version

It is the entry in My Files that connects your Galaxy phone to a server — a computer or storage box on a network — so you can browse its shared folders and copy files to and from it, the same way you would with the phone's own storage. Samsung documents very little about it, and that gap is part of the answer.

What Samsung actually says

Samsung's US guide to My Files lists it as one of the places you can send a file, Network storage, where you "Tap Add network storage to add and use a server or other network storage location." After choosing a destination, you finish with "Move here" or "Copy here", exactly as you would for a folder on the phone (Manage files on your Galaxy phone or tablet, read 24 September 2026).

The app's own store listing adds three things (Samsung My Files, Galaxy Store, read 24 September 2026):

It describes the feature as "Connect to a server and use it."
It is a separate piece: "Network storage (accessible after downloading the APK file)". If the entry is not in your My Files, that line suggests it has to be downloaded first.
It may not be on every phone: "Supported features may be different depending on models."

What Samsung does not say

We looked for a Samsung help page listing which kinds of server it can connect to, and found none on Samsung's support site or in the store listing: neither the My Files guide (Manage files on your Galaxy phone or tablet, read 24 September 2026) nor the app's listing (Samsung My Files, Galaxy Store, read 24 September 2026) names one. Lists of connection types do circulate in forum threads written by users. We are not repeating them here, because we could not match them to anything Samsung publishes. The reliable place to check is the Add network storage screen on your own phone, which shows the options your version supports.

Samsung's pages are equally silent on whether the phone and server must share a Wi-Fi network, and on speed or file-size limits. If those matter to you, test with one small file first.

Network storage is not cloud storage

Samsung keeps the two apart in its own lists. The US guide gives "Google Drive" and "OneDrive" as separate destinations from Network storage, and the store listing puts "Samsung Cloud Drive", "Google Drive" and "OneDrive" under cloud services, with the server feature listed on its own line.

The practical difference, in our words: a cloud drive is someone else's computer that you reach through an account; network storage is a machine you or your organisation run, reached with that machine's own address and login. Nothing goes to a company's servers unless the server you connect to is one.

What you need before you start

A server with a shared folder — typically a computer set up to share, or a network storage box.
Its address and a login that the server accepts.
The Network storage entry itself, per the store listing's note about the separate download.

If what you actually want is to get files onto a computer once, a USB cable is simpler — Samsung's own route for that is covered in reaching Samsung files from a computer.

Copy, not move, when the network is involved

Our advice: when the destination is another machine, use Copy here, check the file opened on the other side, and only then delete the original. If the connection drops halfway, you want the original still sitting on the phone rather than half of it on a server. How a move works underneath.