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User profile for user: dinky2
dinky2 Author
User level: Level 1
26 points

Airdrop stopped working

Unfortunately the "Airdrop not working" issue has been brought up numerous times so the odds are low to find a solution, but still...


My Mac is on Catalina and Airdrop has always been working fine between the Mac and our iPhones. Until recent, when the iPhones didn't show up anymore in the Airdrop Finder panel nor did the Mac show up on the iPhone's Airdrop devices. Until I restart my Mac then Airdrop is working for a while until it gives up again. Rather unworkable situation.

I followed all the obvious steps to check wifi, bluetooth and what have you, but no luck. The iPhones are iPhone 13 Pro Max running IOS15

Does any of you have any clue as to what might be causing this ?

iPhone 13 Pro Max

Posted on Dec 9, 2021 1:50 PM

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User profile for user: Ali_E1
Ali_E1
User level: Community Specialist

Posted on Dec 12, 2021 1:39 PM

dinky2,


Thanks for clarifying and checking settings for us. We definitely understand how inconvenient restarting your Mac would be every time you need to use AirDrop. Have you had a chance to reach out to Apple Support to see if they’re able to offer more advanced support for this? If not, this step may be in the cards for you.


Contact Apple Support


Before contacting Apple, you might try a few more troubleshooting steps. 


- Does it seem to matter where you’re initiating AirDrop? (e.g. sharing from Photos, Safari, etc.)

- Try enabling Power Nap. This will allow your computer to keep an iCloud connection when it goes into sleep mode.

- Try setting AirDrop to Everyone on both your iPhone and Mac to see if it makes a difference. 

- Test to see if it occurs in a new user account. 


If you’re still unable to see each other without frequent restarts, it may be time to contact Apple.


All Our Best.

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User profile for user: Ali_E1
Ali_E1
User level: Community Specialist

Dec 12, 2021 1:39 PM in response to dinky2

dinky2,


Thanks for clarifying and checking settings for us. We definitely understand how inconvenient restarting your Mac would be every time you need to use AirDrop. Have you had a chance to reach out to Apple Support to see if they’re able to offer more advanced support for this? If not, this step may be in the cards for you.


Contact Apple Support


Before contacting Apple, you might try a few more troubleshooting steps. 


- Does it seem to matter where you’re initiating AirDrop? (e.g. sharing from Photos, Safari, etc.)

- Try enabling Power Nap. This will allow your computer to keep an iCloud connection when it goes into sleep mode.

- Try setting AirDrop to Everyone on both your iPhone and Mac to see if it makes a difference. 

- Test to see if it occurs in a new user account. 


If you’re still unable to see each other without frequent restarts, it may be time to contact Apple.


All Our Best.

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User profile for user: Ali_E1
Ali_E1
User level: Community Specialist

Dec 10, 2021 1:27 PM in response to dinky2

Greetings, dinky2. 


Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! We understand that you’re experiencing an issue with your updated iPhone 13 Pro Max devices and your Mac running macOS Catalina connecting to one another when you attempt to use AirDrop, and we'd be delighted to offer some suggestions that may help.


It sounds like you may have already worked through the steps outlined in this article. If you haven’t, start with the “If you can’t see the other device in Airdrop” section here:


Use AirDrop on your Mac - Apple Support


The key point here may be to check your Firewall settings in System Preferences. And disable Personal Hotspot on your iPhone devices. 


If everything checks out and you’re still not seeing AirDrop options without restarting your Mac, we have a few questions that will help us isolate further. 


- Are you able to see each other when you use AirDrop only between your iPhone devices? 

- What are your sleep settings for the Mac? For example, do you have it set to sleep automatically? Is Power Nap enabled? We’re curious to see if the AirDrop failure occurs only after your Mac wakes from sleep.


Set sleep and wake settings for your Mac - Apple Support


We look forward to learning more.


All Our Best.

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User profile for user: dinky2
dinky2 Author
User level: Level 1
26 points

Dec 11, 2021 2:31 AM in response to Ali_E1

Thanks Alicia. We have always been able to use Airdrop between both our iPhones and the Mac, so the basic settings are OK. Even now we can Airdrop between our iPhones.The firewall settings are as suggested:

The energy saving settings are:

Waking my Mac has never had any impact on the ability to use Airdrop, so that would be new. Then again, something must have changed to cause it to stop working. As far as I remember the problems started after installing IOS15 on our phones, so maybe there is some weird incompatibility between Catalina and IOS15. Unfortunately I cannot upgrade Mac OS because for my Mac I can only go as far as Catalina. New Mac still not available because of chip problems

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Airdrop stopped working

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