Airdrop to myself between different Apple IDs

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Level 1

15 points

Airdrop to myself between different Apple IDs

I have a work-issued iPad Pro, signed in under one Apple ID, and a personal MacBook Pro (running Ventura, 13.1), signed in under another Apple ID. Airdrop on the Mac is set to Allow me to be discovered by: Everyone. As of yesterday, I could airdrop a file from the iPad to the Mac. Overnight, the iPad auto-updated to iPad OS 16.3.1. Now when I try to share a file via Airdrop from the iPad to the Mac, I get No People Found. Nothing has changed in the settings on either the iPad or the Mac.

If on the Mac, I sign out under my personal Apple ID and sign in under my work Apple ID, then the Mac appears in the list of nearby devices in Airdrop on the iPad and I can send files to the Mac. At work, in Airdrop on the iPad I always see an ever-changing menagerie of nearby devices belonging to other people, obviously not logged in under my Apple ID! But it seems impossible now to share files with myself to a device on which I am signed in under a different Apple ID. What gives here? Is there any way to enable this self-to-self sharing without having all devices on the same Apple ID? (This would cause me to lose access to data on one device or the other and so is not an option.)

iPad Pro 10.5-inch, Wi-Fi

Posted on Feb 27, 2023 5:36 AM

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Answer 1

elisatems Author

Level 1

15 points

Mar 2, 2023 9:28 AM in response to karina184

@karina184,

I just spent an hour with one of our IT specialists trying to puzzle this out. He also verified that there are no settings managed by IT that could possibly be to blame, however he could not rule out that the problem is specific to my iPad. Since he also has two Apple IDs, he will try to reproduce the problem using his own iPad and Mac. If he can, then that would establish that it is a problem in Apple's system software, either iPadOS or MacOS or both. In that case I'll reach out to Apple Support.

I suppose it is possible that no or few other users have tried to Airdrop to another device owned by themselves, but signed in under a different Apple ID.

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Answer 2

karina184

Community Specialist

Mar 1, 2023 10:56 AM in response to elisatems

Hey elisatems,

At this point, we would recommend reaching out to Apple Support. They will have the necessary tools to investigate into this matter more with you: Get Support.

Have a great day.

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Answer 3

CMac33

Community Specialist

Mar 1, 2023 6:17 AM in response to elisatems

Thanks for reaching out elisatems,

"Make sure that the person you're sending to is nearby and within Bluetooth and Wi-Fi range.
Check that you and the person you're sending to have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on. If either of you have Personal Hotspot on, turn it off.
Check if the person you're sending to has their AirDrop set to receive from Contacts Only. If they do, and you're in their Contacts, they need to have your Apple ID's email address or mobile number in your contact card for AirDrop to work.
If you're not in their Contacts, have them set their AirDrop receiving setting to Everyone in order to receive the file."

If the issue persist after verifying the above then it might be useful to contact the IT administrator for your employer as these devices may have special settings or a profile that restricts use of the device.

Cheers!

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Answer 4

elisatems Author

Level 1

15 points

Mar 1, 2023 4:45 AM in response to elisatems

Seriously, has no one else had this issue? I find that extremely hard to believe.

(In fact, there is this thread from 3 years ago with 55 "Me too"s, and a single reply from a community specialist who apparently didn't even read the OP, as the reply suggested something that obviously the OP had taken into account.)

But I ran into this issue first when the iPad updated to iPadOS 16.1.1 and the iPad was signed in under my personal Apple ID. Whereas before I could Airdrop to the Mac (signed in on my work Apple ID) without any difficulty, suddenly the iPad could no longer see the Mac as a nearby device. To enable Airdrop to the Mac, I had to sign in on the iPad under my work Apple ID. At the time I assumed that it was related to Apple's security tightening of Airdrop on iOS / iPadOS with that release, but the iPad could still see (and CAN still see), and attempt to Airdrop to, nearby devices that belong to complete strangers. That makes no sense to me at all.

And until now, despite the work-issue iPad and my personal Mac being signed in under different Apple IDs, I could still Airdrop freely between them.

Why would Apple make it impossible to Airdrop to a device owned by the same person, just signed in under a different Apple ID?? Was it the update to iPadOS 16.3.1 that applied this change, or something else?

And is there a way to enable it to do this (short of constant switching between Apple IDs, which is slow and cumbersome)?

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Answer 5

elisatems Author

Level 1

15 points

Mar 1, 2023 9:36 AM in response to CMac33

For the record, I know for a fact that none of the things you suggest apply (in fact I mentioned more than one of them in my OP), except *possibly* managed settings controlled by our IT department. But as it turns out, I reached out to them when this issue first arose and they were as mystified as I was - in fact, it was they who suggested the tightened Airdrop security that was imposed as of 16.1.1. But that does not explain why I was able to continue to Airdrop between the work iPad and my personal Mac (different Apple IDs) until the iPad updated to 16.3.1 two nights ago.

So bottom line, it does not seem likely that our IT department has restricted this service, at least not knowingly. (And it does not make sense, either, since apparently I can still attempt to Airdrop to devices owned by complete strangers.)

Now can we move past the canned replies, please?

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Airdrop to myself between different Apple IDs

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