So many years on, why is Airdrop still a failure?

Airdrop isn't a failure, you're trying to make it do something it was never designed to.

Airdrop provides file transfers over very short distances.

Two phones next to each other, for example, or your phone while you have it in front of your Mac.

It isn't designed to transfer files between Macs sixty feet apart, rather a maximum of thirty.

"Both devices are within 30 feet (9 meters) of each other and have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on"

Use AirDrop on your Mac - Apple Support

As William noted, you're outside the Bluetooth range, so it's not surprising AirDrop doesn't cut it.

However, since you're both on the same LAN, consider enabling File Sharing (System Preferences -> Sharing -> File Sharing) on one (or both) the Macs. This makes one (or more) folders on your machine available over the network, and the other machine can connect via the Finder for easy drag-and-drop over the network (far faster than instant messaging apps that have to transfer via a central server)

AirDrop is hybrid of technologies using Bluetooth to create the connection and Wi-Fi for the actual transfer.

Most people have never used the alternatives.

If you've ever used the alternatives: bluetooth file transfer or Wi-Fi in ad hoc mode (peer to peer w/o an access point) like on Windows or between a mobile and a PC those are annoying, slow, clunky and a complete pain in the butt.

Outside of that 30 foot max range you are outside of what the technology is meant for and should be using an alternative.

Mainly, you should be using network file sharing. This explains how you do that, as it's all built-in on the Mac:

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/set-up-file-sharing-on-mac-mh17131/mac

rcosta887 wrote:

AirDrop is hybrid of technologies using Bluetooth to create the connection and Wi-Fi for the actual transfer.

If you've ever used the alternatives: bluetooth file transfer or Wi-Fi in ad hoc mode (peer to peer w/o an access point) like on Windows or between a mobile and a PC those are annoying, slow, clunky and a complete pain in the butt.

True, dat!

Outside of that 30 foot max range you are outside of what the technology is meant for and should be using an alternative.

Still, it would be helpful to know which services/daemons/agents/ports AirDrop and Continuity (incl. Universal Clipboard, Handoff... Here is a FULL LIST of what's part of Continuity, w/requirements, but that's it) each rely on, for those of us who keep our firewall settings pretty tight, or want to troubleshoot, such as by looking for the traffic. Documentation is lacking, AFAIK. For me, both of 'em work but fail surprisingly often between devices all within arms' range. Continuity stuff stopped working for me recently, and I can't figure it out. (I'm sure I've used Universal Clipboard and Handoff successfully between the devices where it's not currently working.)

There are some good preliminary troubleshooting steps at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209460 for Universal Clipboard and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209455 for Handoff which I'm double-checking now... all steps confirmed but no go. I see "Safari From "<my computernam>" and can press it and "Opening Webpage from Handoff" appears for this page in iOS, but the page never loads. ""Opening Webpage from Handoff" never goes away/times out (and the progress bar doesn't move). I just double-checked all the setup steps.

I'm assuming with the Handoff not working between iPhone and Mac they are in the same room yes? (only the Mac to Mac).

Does this happen with just one of the Macs or with each of the Macs with the Handoff?

Also if your Wi-Fi is 2.4, or 2.4+5.0 the 2.4 part can interfere with bluetooth.

It makes me wonder if the bluetooth on that particular Mac is faulty. If that were the case that would explain a lot. Like with this, and the speed being super slow you mentioned.

In terms of things like ports and such, as far as I know Apple hasn't published resources on the exact inner workings of AirDrop, at least not the last time I checked when I was wanting to know (kind of a lot like you) exactly how it worked. It pretty much falls under the label of "secret sauce". What I can say is that if it turns out that one of those Macs' bluetooth is faulty, using a generic USB bluetooth plugin as a solution (great for lots of things like keyboard and mouse w/ a failing Mac internal bluetooth) I would expect more likely than not wouldn't work...it's so hardware specific from what I have seen.

I really would be concerned about potential 2.4 ghz interference though with more than a couple bluetooth devices present and especially if your wifi is running at that.

(This is a revised & updated version of above post; too late to edit or delete it.)

costa887 wrote:

AirDrop is hybrid of technologies using Bluetooth to create the connection and Wi-Fi for the actual transfer.

If you've ever used the alternatives: bluetooth file transfer or Wi-Fi in ad hoc mode (peer to peer w/o an access point) like on Windows or between a mobile and a PC those are annoying, slow, clunky and a complete pain in the butt.

True, dat!

Outside of that 30 foot max range you are outside of what the technology is meant for and should be using an alternative.

Still, it would be helpful to know which services/daemons/agents/ports AirDrop and Continuity (incl. Universal Clipboard, Handoff... Here is a FULL LIST of what's part of Continuity, w/requirements, but that's it) each rely on, for those of us who keep our firewall settings pretty tight, or want to troubleshoot, such as by looking for the traffic. Documentation is lacking, AFAIK. For me, both of 'em work but fail surprisingly often between devices all within arms' range. Continuity stuff stopped working for me recently, and I can't figure it out. (I'm sure I've used Universal Clipboard and Handoff successfully between the devices where it's not currently working.)

There are some good preliminary troubleshooting steps at https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209460 for Universal Clipboard and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209455 for Handoff which I'm double-checking now... all steps confirmed but no go.

Handoff (HO): All steps confirmed for HO. I see "Safari From "<mycomputersname>" and can press it and "Opening Webpage from Handoff" appears (presumably for this page) on iPhone, but the page never loads. ""Opening Webpage from Handoff" never goes away/times out (and the progress bar doesn't move). I just double-checked all the setup steps.

Universal Clipboard (UC): All steps confirmed for UC. On my Mac, I can copy the thread # from this thread to the clipboard, but paste doesn't work. "Paste" is selectable, and a paste is super slow, so it's trying. Same from iPhone to Mac. "Paste" is selectable, and a paste is super slow, so it's trying.

(Oh, and I even have my firewall turned off for these tests. And again, these are all at arm's length.)

(All steps confirmed on Apple Watch too, for good measure. Same Apple IDs, same Wi-Fi, Bluetooth on & Handoff on, on all 4 on all 3. Let's see if things work to/from the watch and the two other devices...: in a following post)

I'm not sure what you're doing wrong; AirDrop between my iPhone and Macs, and between my iPhone and other iPhones, and between my iPhone and iPad, has worked flawlessly almost 100% of the time - I use it almost daily.

(The few times it hasn't worked were generally due to settings on the remote iPhone.)

I don’t know what there is to do wrong, you’re reporting problems with functionality that seems to work wonderfully for most everyone else, so the next step is debugging your particular issue.

Have you ever noticed under what circumstances you have difficulty?

Satchmo wrote:

What evidence do you have to support that assertion? What evidence is there about how many Mac users have even tried Airdrop? How many have tried it once without success and elected not to try again?

Assumptions are not facts.

Among other things, when users are truly having issues with a feature, there are many, many threads started here about it.

Visibility issues are the most common problem people have with AirDrop—sometimes, the recipient doesn’t show up, no matter how hard you try.

I understand that - I've seen it myself - but it's fairly rare.

This is one of the reasons Apple introduced the new U1 chip with ultra-wideband technology for the iPhone 11. The U1 is designed to improve device discoverability and eliminate the issues that have plagued AirDrop for years.

https://www.howtogeek.com/442534/airdrop-not-working-heres-how-to-fix-it/

That's fine - but it doesn't prove the issue is commonplace, either, or in any way a "failure."

That's your experience. I'm sorry you faced issues, but they are not common and certainly are not the norm.

I can't fight your argument that because you had difficulty the feature is broken or a failure.

However I can say that all my devices have the firewall enabled and AirDrop works perfectly.

You're replying to me but you're talking about the OP's situation. (Yeah, in retrospect, I shoulda started my own thread.) To recap, I'm talking here essentially about 1 mac, and 1 iPhone (and 2.4 GHz only router) all at arm's length.

rcosta887 wrote:

...Does this happen with just one of the Macs or with each of the Macs with the Handoff?...

You're replying to me but you're talking about the OP's situation. (Yeah, in retrospect, I shoulda started my own thread.) To recap, I'm talking here essentially about 1 mac, and 1 iPhone (and 2.4 GHz only router) all at arm's length.

In terms of things like ports and such, as far as I know Apple hasn't published resources on the exact inner workings of AirDrop, at least not the last time I checked when I was wanting to know (kind of a lot like you) exactly how it worked. It pretty much falls under the label of "secret sauce".

Thanks. (BOO!!!) I remember when Apple provided a complete schematic with each computer they sold, LOL.

What I can say is that if it turns out that one of those Macs' bluetooth is faulty, using a generic USB bluetooth plugin as a solution (great for lots of things like keyboard and mouse w/ a failing Mac internal bluetooth) I would expect more likely than not wouldn't work...it's so hardware specific from what I have seen.

Good to check for this. Mac has been working fine with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. iPhone has been working fine with a bluetooth headset I have powered up only from time to time (hours/week) - actually, the Mac too. And both are working reliably connecting to the 'net over 2.4.

I really would be concerned about potential 2.4 ghz interference though with more than a couple bluetooth devices present and especially if your wifi is running at that.

I think I wouldn't have good speedtest results on both if there was massive interference, but I do. I can ping my computer from my iPhone reliably (500/500 pings returned). Given that, interference can't be mostly preventing transferring merely a URL or a sentence of text.

Puttering around a bit:

(I did find a suggestion to run

sudo pkill blued 

and then I checked, confirming it's running still/again.

Did find some slightly strange stuff. Even after this:

/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --getglobalstate
Firewall is disabled. (State = 0)

this:

/usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw --listapps ;
sudo /usr/libexec/ApplicationFirewall/socketfilterfw -l

still outputs screens full of configuration. But I guess that's not that strange. )

Rebooting router for good measure, and repeating iPhone <=> Mac tests. Result: Same. Exact same behavior. Oh, and no, Handoff doesn't work in the iPhone to Mac either: