Airdrop on Mac

Hello jaco36,

There are a few requirements that will need to be met in order to use AirDrop between your device and others. Make sure you meet the requirements below so you can use this feature:

Make sure that your devices meet these requirements:

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

Each Mac was introduced in 2012 or later (excluding the 2012 Mac Pro) and is using OS X Yosemite or later. To find out, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac. 

Each iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is using iOS 7 or later, with Personal Hotspot turned off.

Make sure that your devices can receive AirDrop requests:

Choose Go > AirDrop from the menu bar in the Finder, then check the ”Allow me to be discovered by” setting in the AirDrop window. iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch have a similar setting. If set to receive from Contacts Only, both devices must be signed in to iCloud, and the email address or phone number associated with the sender's Apple ID must be in the Contacts app of the receiving device.

The Contacts Only option is available on devices that support iOS 10 and later, iPadOS, and macOS Sierra 10.12 and later. If AirDrop is set to Contacts Only on a device with an earlier software version, you can change the option to Everyone while using AirDrop, then change it back when not in use.

Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences, then click Security & Privacy. Click the Firewall tab, then click the lock  and enter your administrator password when prompted. Click Firewall Options, then deselect “Block all incoming connections.”

For more details, follow this link:

Use AirDrop on your Mac - Apple Support

Cheers!

jaco36,

If you create a new user account, and then test that behavior from that account, do you still not see those options? Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac - Apple Support

That should help to further isolate this to a system wide or account specific behavior.

Take care.

Hello jaco36,

Try checking your firewall preferences. If 'Block all incoming connections' is selected, this may be preventing communications for AirDrop. "Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Security & Privacy, then click Firewall." Those steps and further details can be found in Use a firewall to prevent unwanted connections on Mac - Apple Support.

Kind regards.

Hey jaco36,

Thank you for letting us know. Does the same issue happen in, and restarting out, of safe mode? Safe mode only allows certain software to load, which can help isolate this further or even possibly resolve the issue. You can read more about that here: How to use safe mode on your Mac - Apple Support

Let us know what you find.

Best wishes.

We appreciate you going through these steps. From here, we'd recommend reaching out to Apple Support: Contact Apple Support

Regards.