AirDrop conitnually Failing between iPhone and MacBook

This may sound daft but, like many others, I've just upgraded to Sonoma and can no longer Airdrop anything from iPhone to iMac. I read all the previous comments and was not happy going into Terminal in case I totally messed up my iMac. And then I noticed that in AirDrop on my computer upgrading to Sonoma must have altered a few settings as my computer was now 'not discoverable by anyone'!! I altered this to discoverable by anyone and my transfer from iPhone to iMac miraculously worked. Seems a small thing to cause such consternation but it's a bit like throwing out the printer before checking the fuse in the plug!!

I couldn't send from iPhone to MacBook. I chatted with Apple Support. He told me to turn VPN off on my MacBook. When I did, Airdrop worked.

It finally worked for me after I turned off my VPN on my MacBook Pro.

This terminal command fix it for me in a second!

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist NoMulticastAdvertisements -bool false

Hey CWR0401,

You've done some great troubleshooting steps so far. Does AirDrop fail both ways? For example, from the MacBook Pro to the iPhone or the iPhone to the MacBook Pro?

If you haven't already, we recommend updating to the latest iOS 17 release, which is currently iOS 17.0.2 before testing again: Update your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

If that doesn't resolve the issue, you may want to reach out to Apple Support directly for a closer look at the fail notification. You can reach them here: Get Support

Take care.

Update the OS on the iPhone since there has been a couple updates since release. This was already mentioned by @bbesspete has already mentioned. Air Drop usually requires every device to be completely up to date even with the smallest of patches.

Sounds like Apple finally paid attention to us. The new Sonoma update 14.1 fixed the issue with Airdrop not working. No acknowledgement of the issue persisting months, but at least it's fixed. Can send/receive laptop to phone ad visa versa. Finally

This immediately works once Firewall - Block all incoming connections is disabled.

THANK YOU !!!!

It seems you can disable individual connections (all of them in fact) but leave "Automatically allow built-in software to allow incoming connections".

I ran this in a terminal:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist NoMulticastAdvertisements -bool false

Then rebooted. I was able to receive AirDrop on my Mac again (finally).

The thing that worked for me is signing out of iCloud on both of my devices and then signing back in. We'll see how long that holds.

I had the same issue. I'm not sure when it exactly happened because I updated my OS twice before identifying the issue. I saw some people running commands on the terminal, which I only do as last resort as you can have unexpected behaviours.

Anyway, what worked for me was toggling air drop and sending a picture to my iPhone. After that, my iPhone was able to send files via air drop to my MacBook.

FIXED. I'm very slow on upgrades--I want to give them time to show their bugs. But I was able to fix the issue today. I had been disregarding the prompt lately to update my email account info in System Preferences. Before I did so, no luck--but AirDrop worked just fine as soon as I did.

Running Monterey 12.7.2, iPhone 11, iOS 17.2.1.

Another follow up. After upgrading iOS to 17.5.1 (from 17.4.1), it *sometimes* works. If you open 'AirDrop' on your Mac, you should see your phone on a screen that looks like a radar. What I've noticed is that when it works, another copy of my phone appears, downloads my files, and disappears. No matter what though, it does take a long time (30-60 seconds) of getting a flashing 'Waiting...' symbol before anything happens. Through testing, what I've been able to determine is that Apple appears to be figuring out if you have WiFi *and* bluetooth access to your computer using some contact information. They seem to want to prefer using WiFi for the actual transfer, but will resort to Bluetooth if they have to and there is a lot of back-and-forth trying to figure out if you are on the WiFi. I've also had it lock up once starting to send something and right clicking on my phone avatar/symbol in the Macs AirDrop screen showed it was trying to calculate number of files and size, so that negotiation might be hanging it up as well.

So, you could just turn off your WiFi and use Bluetooth exclusively, that was *more* reliable, but not bullet proof and took a long time in the 'Waiting...' state before it decided to finally DO something. This definitely is much worse than it was before I upgraded Sonoma.

Just tested it by turning off Bluetooth and using WIfi -- Took 35 seconds to finally decided to transfer, then it was done in less than a second. This option is not always available -- Apple ALSO seems to cache a list of favorite sharing... methods such as specific Messages contact and your Mac if you Airdrop to it. So, if you turn off Bluetooth, this cached destination may disappear, based on the testing I've done.

I've narrowed it down to the laptop. Used another iPhone on 17.0.3 and airdrop fails sending to MBP. I turned off private relay on every device but that didnt change outcome. Airdrop is now useless to me on Sonoma.

I'm still having the same issues with airdrop as well, though I did notice something. For some reason, no matter what I set my airdrop privacy settings to, it will force its way back to no one for permissions. So now, whenever I need to airdrop something I open airdrop in finder and toggle it to everyone or contacts only right as I am sending. It works about 50% of the time doing this. Sometimes it might even say everyone or contacts only already, but toggling to no one and then back has similar results. Very odd.

I also have the internet dropping regularly issue. It's not an issue with wifi as my phone, my roommate's computer & phone, and other devices have perfect connections and no dropped internet. The computer will show connected to the network, but internet just *wont* work. Restarting does not fix it either. I just have to wait it out and it eventually resolves on its own. Insanely frustrating on an almost $4000 laptop. Support just gives the run around with basic troubleshooting I've already done 1000 times, and ultimately passes the buck to internet provider, which isn't the issue.