How to View Amazon Fire Stick Files on Your PC

Evan Gower September 30, 2019

Amazon Firestick is a multi-purpose device that allows you to stream any media on your TV and even browse the internet. Whatever files you have stored on the Amazon Firestick, you can actually view them on your desktop computer or laptop. Given the fact that Firestick devices weren’t designed with PC connectivity in mind, this process may be less straightforward than you’re used to. However, viewing, as well as transferring files from your Firestick to your PC, is very much possible now.

How to View Amazon Fire Stick Files on Your PC

Connecting Your PC to the Firestick

Amazon Firestick was intended to work with television devices. You simply plug it into your TV and let it work its magic. However, you can both stream content on the Firestick and view and transfer it to your PC. The former is done by screen mirroring. Use your Firestick remote to navigate to Home and then select Mirroring. The Amazon device will then enter standby mode, whilst you to connect your PC to the TV.

On Windows 10, navigate to the Notification icon in the lower right corner of the screen and connect it to your Firestick (it will likely be named after your Amazon Prime account). The screen will initially be duplicated, but you can change the projection mode from the settings menu on your PC.

Viewing and Transferring Files to Your PC

After connecting your PC to your Amazon Firestick, you’ll be able to play, browse, and stream everything from your PC on your TV screen. However, this is merely the Firestick’s option that allows you to display one screen on the other. If you want to view and transfer the files from your Amazon device to your computer, you’re going to have to take a completely different approach.

Go to the home screen on the Firestick menu. From there, navigate to Apps and search for an app called ES File Explorer. Alternatively, you can type in the app’s name into the search bar. If ES File Explorer isn’t installed on your computer, use the Downloader app (using the aforementioned principle to find it) and download it.

Now, launch this app, navigate to Home and then select View on PC. From here, you can activate the FTP (File Transfer Protocol) service by selecting Turn On. This will display an FTP address. Now, copy this address (you can simply write it down) and paste it into your preferred browser. This will display the list of files that are on your Amazon Firestick and will allow you to download these files to your PC.

Bear in mind that you’ll need an active internet connection on both devices for the duration of the entire process if you want it to work.

Transferring Files to the Firestick

In order to transfer your desired files from your computer to the Firestick, first, you’ll need to install the ES File Explorer, as explained above. Now, start the Remote Manager in the ES File Explorer app. To do this, select Network from the main menu and then navigate to Remote Manager inside the Network menu. Press the Turn On button to activate the FTP service. After taking note of the mentioned FTP address, insert it into the browser on your PC.

Now, open the FTP Client app (you need to download it to your PC first), enter your Firestick’s IP address, and select Connect. Now, just add rooms to your Firestick and every other file that you want to transfer to the device in question.

Transferring Firestick Files to Your PC

This process may not be straightforward and may involve a little bit of hassle, but if you really need your files transferred from one device to the other, there’s no way of getting around it. Firesticks weren’t designed with data transfer capabilities in mind. The fact they still come with this option is a bonus, as most of similar devices don’t include it.

Have you ever tried to transfer certain files from one of these devices to the other? How did it go? Was the process too confusing? Feel free to discuss this in the comments section below.