Connecting to an Apple Time Capsule Disk over the internet (WAN) using Windows

If you are like myself and sitting on the fence between Windows and Apple based products, you may want to communicate between Windows¹ and your Apple Time Capsule Disk both locally (LAN) and via the internet (WAN).

Setting up the Time Capsule Disk as just a local network drive is fairly easy², however there is little instruction on sharing disks over WAN if you’re using Windows.

The following instructions assume that you have already configured your Time Capsule as a router and that you are assigned a static IP Address by your ISP³.

Open the AirPort Utility Program.

Double click on your Time Machine in the panel on the left.

Click the Disks icon.

You should make a note of the Time Capsule Disk “Name” stated here as it will be required later, for example here it is “Time Capsule”.

Click the “File Sharing” Tab.

1. Ensure “Enable File Sharing” is checked.
2. Secure Shared Disks should have “With a disk password” selected.
3. Enter and verify a “Disk Password”.
4. Check the “Share disks over WAN” box.
5. Lastly, click the “Update” button to restart the TC.

Lookup the IP Address.

Simply visiting whatismyip.com should be enough for this unless you have a more complicated network configuration.

Map the Time Capsule as a network drive.

Click on “Computer” in the Start Menu, then “Map Network Drive” in the top menu.

1. Select an available the drive to mount the Time Capsule as, e.g. “X:”.
2. Enter “\youripdiskname” as the “Folder” value, e.g. \12.34.56.78Time Capsule. (These are the two values from earlier)
3. Click “Finish”.

Enter authentication details.

The user should be “admin” and the password whatever you set as the disk password earlier. Click OK to complete the setup process.

You should then see the Time Capsule drive when navigating back to “Computer”⁴.

Notes

1. These instructions were written using Windows 7, older versions of the OS may require variations of the setup process.
2. Follow the steps above but instead of enter entering the IP Address when mapping the drive, simply click browse and click the name of the Time Capsule Disk folder.
3. UK Virgin Media customers should be OK with this, although you are not strictly given a static IP Address, it’s uncommon for it to change.
4. If you have the TC mapped as a local drive as well as a following these instructions, you will see two Network drives for the TC.