--- title: How to Access WSL Files in Windows | daily.dev description: Learn how to seamlessly access and manage Linux files from Windows using WSL. This guide covers various methods including using Windows Explorer and the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-access-wsl-files-in-windows-zgzkb0dcg twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How to Access WSL Files in Windows | daily.dev og:description: Learn how to seamlessly access and manage Linux files from Windows using WSL. This guide covers various methods including using Windows Explorer and the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-access-wsl-files-in-windows-zgzkb0dcg og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/zGzKb0DcG.png og:image:alt: How to Access WSL Files in Windows og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How to Access WSL Files in Windows **[It's Foss](https://daily.dev/sources/itsfoss)** · 4 min read · 20 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary Learn how to seamlessly access and manage Linux files from Windows using WSL. This guide covers various methods including using Windows Explorer and the command line. It also explains how to open Linux files in Windows apps like Notepad, and how to transfer files between Windows and WSL using the `cp` command. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@jtabox** · 0 upvotes > I'm genuinely curious and I don't want to be condescending or anything, but I've seen a couple of those articles and I wonder: is there a reason there's an article for "how to access WSL files in Windows"? > > I mean they're right there in Explorer, literally in the same sidebar every other filesystem and drive shows up, it's not like you need to activate some obscure option to see them. > > And I kinda refuse to believe that someone somehow would have enough knowledge and experience to look up and install WSL but then get stuck at "hmm, how do I access WSL files", without noticing the Linux file... --- Tags: [#filesystems](https://daily.dev/tags/filesystems), [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#productivity](https://daily.dev/tags/productivity), [#windows](https://daily.dev/tags/windows) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-access-wsl-files-in-windows-zgzkb0dcg) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How to Access WSL Files in Windows","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-access-wsl-files-in-windows-zgzkb0dcg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-to-access-wsl-files-in-windows-zgzkb0dcg"},"datePublished":"2024-07-03T07:57:24.306Z","dateModified":"2025-07-28T02:14:07.872Z","description":"Learn how to seamlessly access and manage Linux files from Windows using WSL. 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None of those things are directly advertised in Windows or preinstalled (which is fine, most Windows users won’t really care).","datePublished":"2024-09-18T17:43:49.013Z","dateModified":"2024-09-18T17:44:36.072Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/zGzKb0DcG#c-2Jknaz2G6","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Jay Bee","url":"https://daily.dev/jtabox","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocJ-hsX7cydQ0PfUAH1Nes9IX2g6MnVTxsMzV_Tylq_Xx96pZ_j4PQ=s96-c"}}]} ```