Airdrop Not working iPhone 13 Pro Max

Mine had the same problem.

It looks like the contacts on the phone do not match with contacts of the iCloude

Try

1. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID)-> iCloud -> Turn on Contacts (Green)
2. Merge
3. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID) : Sign Out from iCloud
4. Restart the phone (Off/On)
5. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID) : Sign in iCloud

Just came here to find a solution to the exact same problem between my iPhone 13 Pro and my wife’s iPhone 11. Easily discoverable but neither phone would ever prompt to accept anything from the other.

I had iCloud contacts enabled and she didn’t. I disabled and re-enabled my iCloud contacts while also enabling her’s. Airdrop worked immediately.

It would seem local contacts are enough to discover other people but you need the contact in iCloud for Airdrop to actually perform its function?

Thanks 4989ken!

The Airdrop wasn’t working after I transferred my data to the iPhone 13. The solution turned out to be very simple. Go to the Contacts page and click on “Groups” (it’s at the top left hand side). Make sure “All iCloud” is checked. When I did that, everything worked perfectly.

4989ken

User level:

Level 1

In response to SteveO2019

Mine had the same problem.

It looks like the contacts on the phone do not match with contacts of the iCloude

Try

1. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID)-> iCloud -> Turn on Contacts (Green)
2. Merge
3. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID) : Sign Out from iCloud
4. Restart the phone (Off/On)
5. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID) : Sign in iCloud

After trying numerous other steps. This is what worked for me. Had to do it on both phones.

So, I had the same issue where I upgraded my wife’s phone to a new 13 Pro. Other people could AirDrop to us, but we couldn’t AirDrop between us. When checking, I found that each time I tried to connect, there were 2 different accounts. It could send to one that was considered an “other account” but not to the actual account. Reading comments in this chat, I thought that it could be related to iCloud. I took my wife’s iPhone and logged her off of iCloud. After logging her back into iCloud, it worked! Also without the duplicate accounts. I’m thinking that the there was something in the migration from her old iPhone to the new iPhone 13 Pro that caused this issue. I’m optimistic that this has resolved the issue.

A modification of a suggestion earlier worked for us, with this same problem between two brand new iPhone 13's, each restored from backups on iCloud that were taken at the Apple Store on our old phones prior to deactivating them.

1. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID)-> iCloud -> Turn off Contacts (because we each had them on)
2. Keep the contacts on the device
3. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID)-> iCloud -> Turn on Contacts (Green)
4. Merge

4989ken wrote:

1. Mine had the same problem.

It looks like the contacts on the phone do not match with contacts of the iCloude

Try

Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID)-> iCloud -> Turn on Contacts (Green)

2. Merge

3. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID) : Sign Out from iCloud

4. Restart the phone (Off/On)

5. Settings -> Yor Name (Apple ID) : Sign in iCloud

Merge?

Thank you @Andrzej78! This 100% solved the problem. After a day of debugging, resetting network settings, turning on/off wifi and bluetooth, factory resetting my phone and nothing working, these instructions helped perfectly.

As mentioned, switch off iCloud contacts sync, select "Keep on phone", switch on iCloud contacts sync, select "Merge". Everything works as expected after that.

This problem seems to be caused by the different handling of contacts on the phone and iCloud. When you log out of your iCloud account, you will be asked if you want to merge contacts of your phone and the one in iCloud or cancel.

Choose merge and log out from your iCloud account, restart, and log in your iCloud account will sync the contacts.

Hope it will help.

Seams that the problem is in the iCloud contacts sync - turning off contacts and turning back on solve the problem (no other reset is required) - just remember to select merge at the time you enable. Started to work immediately.

Don’t have to logout from iCloud on your iPhone.

SteveO2019 Said:

"Airdrop Not working iPhone 13 Pro Max: I’ve tried all that and still not working."

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Reset All Network Settings to Default:

Example of items that will be reset: (Wi-Fi Passwords, VPN Connections, etc)

1. Go To: Settings
2. Tap: General
3. Tap: Reset
4. Tap: Reset Network Settings.
5. Enter: [Your Passcode]

I have this problem too, but it is also a problem on my iphone 7 and iphone 12 mini. It all happened after they were each updated to iOS 15. I have done all the troubleshooting steps I can find including: rebooting, toggling wifi, toggling bluetooth, toggling Airdrop, uninstalling VPN app, resetting network settings on both devices, and even restoring to someone else's iphone 7 from backup after resetting that device to factory settings. Nothing worked.

What's weird is that using Airdrop via the sharing icon with the contact doesn't work, but if I open "Airdrop" from the sharing menu, there are actually two entries. The first one with the contact name under "People" is the one that doesn't work, but the second entry under "Other People" works, which is the phone's name instead of contact name. I have been on the phone with Apple support and they are mystified so far, I have another call scheduled for tomorrow to continue.

As a temporary solution I added a new contact for my wife as the name of her phone with the same details and linked (bottom of contact creation) it to her original contact and voila it worked. Not a solution for a large number of contacts but did work. Hope apple fixes soon.

thanks

E

Just found exactly the same thing yesterday, also with Monterey. Very strange and definitely worth fixing in the next update. Royal pain to turn off VPN just to use AirDrop and then turn it back on afterwards.

Apple is really bad with this feature, this error has been for a long long time ago maybe 5 or 6 years. The only solution that I found it was sing out from your Apple ID session then you can see other devices to transfer data. It is really annoy this error and I already talked with tech support many times and they couldn’t fixed.