How to Connect Two Macs with a Thunderbolt or USB‑C Cable (2026)
Yes, you can plug two Macs into each other with a single cable and move files at 10, 20 or 40 Gbit/s — far faster than Wi‑Fi, with no external drive and no cloud. The feature has been in macOS since 2013 under the name Thunderbolt Bridge. This guide covers what you need, how to do it by hand, and how DiskBridge makes it automatic.
What you need
- Two Macs with Thunderbolt or USB4 ports: every Apple silicon Mac (M1 through M4 and later), and Intel Macs with Thunderbolt 3 (USB‑C) from 2016 on. Older Macs have Thunderbolt 1 or 2 (the Mini DisplayPort‑shaped connector); they work too, with Apple's Thunderbolt 3 ⇄ Thunderbolt 2 adapter.
- A Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 cable. This is what trips everyone up: a USB‑C charging cable, even Apple's, will not link two Macs. Look for the ⚡ logo or "40 Gbps" on the connectors. Which cable?
- macOS 13 Ventura or later for DiskBridge (Thunderbolt Bridge itself dates back to OS X 10.9).
Method 1 — by hand, with macOS File Sharing
- Plug the cable into both Macs. In System Settings › Network, a "Thunderbolt Bridge" interface turns to "Connected" or "Self‑assigned IP" on each Mac. If it stays "Not connected", the cable is not a Thunderbolt/USB4 cable.
- On the Mac whose disks you want to see, turn on System Settings › General › Sharing › File Sharing. Note the address shown (
smb://…) or the Mac's name. - On the other Mac, in the Finder: Go › Connect to Server (⌘K), type
smb://followed by the other Mac's Thunderbolt Bridge IP address (usually starting with 169.254), then the name and password of your account on that Mac. - Pick the volumes to mount. They appear in the Finder sidebar under Locations.
It works, but you redo all of it at every connection: find the address (it changes), reconnect, remount, and remember to eject before unplugging.
Method 2 — automatically, with DiskBridge
DiskBridge is a small menu‑bar app that performs exactly those steps for you, in both directions:
- Install DiskBridge on each Mac from the Mac App Store. The welcome window checks File Sharing and your account, and offers to open at login.
- Plug in the cable. Within seconds each Mac finds the other on the Thunderbolt Bridge (Bonjour) and mounts its disks in the Finder. The first time, macOS asks for the password of your account on the other Mac; tick "Remember in my keychain".
- Unplug: the volumes are unmounted cleanly, and a notification tells you so.
You choose, Mac by Mac, which volumes to mount. With DiskBridge+ you can chain several Macs (A — B — C): each one sees the disks of all the others.
What speed to expect
A Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB4 link negotiates 10 to 40 Gbit/s; between two recent Apple silicon Macs, Thunderbolt Bridge typically runs at 20 Gbit/s. In practice the disk is the limit: from one internal SSD to another, expect 1 to 2 GB per second — a 50 GB file in under a minute. For comparison, Wi‑Fi 6 tops out around 60‑100 MB/s in good conditions, and AirDrop often gives up on very large files.
Frequently asked questions
Thunderbolt Bridge stays "Not connected". Nine times out of ten it's the cable (plain USB‑C) or a hub between the Macs. Connect directly, and check for the ⚡ logo. See Thunderbolt Bridge not working.
Does it go through the internet or Wi‑Fi? No. Thunderbolt Bridge is a private network between the two Macs; nothing leaves the cable. You can even turn Wi‑Fi off.
Do I need an administrator account? To see all the remote Mac's disks, yes (a macOS File Sharing rule). With a standard account, only explicitly shared folders are visible.
What about a Mac and a PC? Windows 11 has the same mechanism (USB4 host‑to‑host networking) and the two understand each other, but you then mount shares by hand on each side. DiskBridge handles Macs only, for now.
In short
Two Macs, a Thunderbolt/USB4 cable, File Sharing turned on: that's all it takes. macOS's Thunderbolt Bridge provides the network; DiskBridge does the rest — detection, mounting, unmounting — with nothing to click. Get DiskBridge on the Mac App Store.
Get DiskBridge on the Mac App Store
More guides
- DiskBridge vs Intel Thunderbolt Share — Linking Two Computers with a Cable, on Mac and on PC
Intel Thunderbolt Share lets two Windows PCs talk over a Thunderbolt cable; DiskBridge does the same between two Macs. What each one does, what it costs, and why they are not interchangeable.
- Migrating to a New Mac over a Cable: Migration Assistant or Manual Copy?
How to move your data to a new Mac as fast as possible with a Thunderbolt cable, what Migration Assistant does well and badly, and how to keep using the old Mac afterwards.
- Moving Video Footage from a MacBook to a Mac Studio Without an External SSD
For editors and photographers — moving 4K/8K footage, RAW libraries and Final Cut, DaVinci or Lightroom projects from a laptop to a desktop workstation at Thunderbolt cable speed.
- Target Disk Mode on Apple Silicon Macs: What Changed, and the Alternative
Target Disk Mode is gone on M1, M2, M3 and M4 Macs. What Apple offers instead (Share Disk), its limits, and how to get direct access to another Mac's disks over a cable again.