Introduction
This article will walk you through how to connect FME Flow to an Azure File Share.
FME Flow supports creating and managing your own connections to network resources. FME Flow resources are a convenient way to store and access data files and locations that workspaces will need access to.
Customers who are already in the Microsoft Azure ecosystem may have existing data in Azure Files that they need FME Flow to access and process.
Connecting Flow to your Azure Files as a network resource location may provide benefits for Flow Authors who regularly read and write to Azure Files and may be easier to interact with than using the AzureFileStorageConnector transformer or Web As A File System.
FME Flow users will also be able to browse connected file shares through the Flow Web User Interface.
Step-by-step Instructions
In this article, I have used the Windows-based FME Platform Azure Marketplace offering as my FME Flow 2026.1 Build 26103 and a separate Azure Storage Account as my connected File Share.
1. Create or Access your Azure File Share
If you don’t already have an Azure File Share, you will need to create one. If you already have a Storage Account with a File Share, navigate to the associated webpage in the Azure Portal.
2. Generate the Script to Mount the File Share
Next, we need to mount our Azure File Share to our Flow virtual machine. Follow these instructions for the official Microsoft documentation. On the storage account web page, navigate to Data Storage> File Shares.
Select the context menu button [...] next to the file share you wish to connect Flow to and click on ‘Connect’.
Follow the instructions for your Flow machine's OS. You will be required to choose a "Drive letter" and the authentication method. Click on "Show Script" to auto-generate a script to be run in a shell on your Flow machine.
3. Run the Script to Mount Azure File Share
Run the script in the correct shell for your Flow machine's OS. In this example, I am using Windows PowerShell.
Make sure the Root path is in the format \\<storageaccountname>.file.core.windows.net\<filesharename>
Verify that you can access your files and folders through the mounted drive in Windows File Explorer.
4. Access FME Flow to Add Resource Connection
Log in to the FME Flow Web UI and navigate to the Resources page. Click the "Create" button in the top right corner.
Fill in the Name, Display Name, and Description. For the Type, choose "Network-based resource".
For the "Directory of a network file-based resource", enter the root path to your Azure File Share and click "Create".
5. [Optional] Troubleshooting "Path does not exist for Shared resource" Error
In case you encounter errors for "Path does not exist for Shared resource", you will likely need to review the permissions of the accounts running the FME Flow Core, Engines, and Web Application Interface.
During testing, FME Flow was running under the local system account (as shown in the Windows Services console), but the Azure File Share was mounted under the VM administrator user. Therefore, the FME Flow ‘Log On As’ was changed to the VM administrator account for the FME Flow Core, Engines, Application Server (not the FME Flow Database).
If you have a specific service account to run FME Flow (recommended), you could mount the Azure File Share as that user. For more information on running the FME Flow Systems under different accounts, please refer to our documentation.
6. Testing Flow to Azure File Share Connection
Browse your files and folders in the Azure File Share through the FME Flow Web UI. You can now read and write to this location when running FME Flow jobs.