An app or a backup tool asks for your NAS "share" or "volume" name, and suddenly you're not sure what to type. It's a common snag, and it comes from three words that get used loosely: volume, share and folder. Once you can tell them apart, finding the right name takes a minute.
Volume, share, folder: which one you need
A volume is the big storage space the NAS assembles from its physical disks, often called something plain like volume1. A share, also called a shared folder, is a named folder sitting on that volume that the NAS publishes over the network, with names like photo, video or backup. A folder is anything nested inside a share. When software asks what to connect to, it almost always means the share name. That's the label you're hunting for.
Where to find it on your NAS
The surest source is your NAS admin panel, under its shared folders list. The exact path depends on the brand, and each has its own screen and wording, so the step-by-step lives on the page for your NAS: Synology, QNAP, UGREEN or TrueNAS. Whatever name is shown there is exactly what you type elsewhere, spaces, capitals and all.
Finding it from your computer
You don't always need to log into the NAS. On Windows, open a File Explorer window and type two backslashes followed by your NAS name or IP address, and it lists the shares you're allowed to reach. On macOS, use Finder, then Go, then Connect to Server, and enter smb:// with the address. Either way the NAS shows you the share names directly.
NAS Ranger does this last step for you. Once you give it the NAS address and your login, it lists the shares it can see, so you pick from real names instead of guessing them.
Try it free: connect NAS Ranger to your NAS and let it show you every share by name, ready to scan for duplicates.