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Level 4

1,121 points

Airdrop does not seem to work

I am having issues getting Airdrop to work. I have been unable to make this feature work at home, nor at work. The steps and symptoms are as follows:

1) On each machine, open a finder window, and select AirDrop. Two icons will appear in the window, representing the source and destination machine.

2) From my source machine, I drag a file (ANY file) to the destination machine. A dialog appears asking if I want to transfer the file.

3) Click yes to start transfer.

4) Immediately two dialogs appear on top of one another. The first indicates it is waiting for permission from the destination to receive the file. The second one that immediately pops up is a failure message.

Has anyone gotten this to work? I am running stock Apple Kit at home so far as network is concerned. We are talking Time Capsule, with nothing special done on the firewall.

The firewall shouldn't matter as Airdrop switches over to an adhoc networking mode point to point between machines when initiated.

Posted on Jul 20, 2011 11:22 AM

95 replies

Mar 22, 2014 12:43 PM in response to SkipHaughay

If I knew how to sue Apple for wasting my time and money I would.

Mini Display port is rubbish cant get the cable s to work, Airdrop dont work, Wifi conection time rubish.

Apple dont care because there making Billions.

Cant wait to see there share price to half to give them a kick up the ***.

Apple just make things work. With out messing around

Apr 30, 2014 3:15 PM in response to StonewallKitty

I had the same problem getting airdrop to work after the recent update.

You have the correct solution.

Thank you so much.

I went to preferences, file sharing,- had to check this on the left to activate the sharing, then I went to options and checked both boxes of file sharing of SMB and AFP.

Works great now!

Jun 26, 2014 2:18 PM in response to SkipHaughay

I have a similar issue.

Airdrop works fine between my MBA and iMac, yet when I just wanted to transfer some pictures from my iPhone (5S) to either my MBA or iMac, it does not work. The iPhone does not 'see' the iMac.

Oddly enough, when I want to transfer those very same pictures from my iPhone to my iPad by Airdrop, then it all works seamlessly.

cbell120l, I understand how you feel... The very reason why we pay a (hefty!) premium for Apple products, is because we simply want the stuff to work, not because we like to spend frustrating hours on all sort of forums in order to get the simplest things to work, like transferring some pictures between two devices from the same manufacturer, both running on software from that very same manufacturer.

Please Apple, it's 2014, this should NOT be a big deal!

edit: ok, I just found out that apparently iOS7 --> OS X (Mavericks) or v.v. is not supported. I wrongly assumed that "Airdrop" logo on both devices means that you can actually airdrop something... Hmmm.... great! 😮

Mr.К

Level 1

0 points

Jun 30, 2014 11:12 AM in response to SkipHaughay

For me nothing helped from all above solutions.

Also I noticed that as soon as I turn on my home WiFi network (turn on my router), AirDrop works fine, but without home network it does not work. It was not good, because it should work without my home WiFi running.

Finally I made it to work: I went to System Settings > Network. In the bottom of services list there is a gear icon with drop down menu. So I selected to change order of services (sorry, don't know how exactly this is called in English version of OSX). Here I removed all services which I don't currently use and set highest priority to Wi-Fi service. Then I rebooted both computers. After this it seems to work fine.

fozzette

Level 1

8 points

Nov 28, 2014 9:50 AM in response to SkipHaughay

I am not very computer literate as the younger people are these days but I do know a little. Here is what happened to me . Airdrop worked fine on both of my computers. Then I went to Yosemite on both of them. What a mistake. Airdrop does not work on either of them. What is even worse is one of the computers will now not recognize my password. It is a bug alright. This is a poor show for Apple software people. No wonder its free.

Snoop Dogg

Level 4

1,502 points

Nov 28, 2014 10:56 AM in response to fozzette

Hi fozzette, is it possible that one Mac is older than 2012 and the other Mac is from 2012 or newer? If that's the case, you'll need to open the AirDrop window on the newer Mac and click the blue link that says "Don't see who you're looking for?" and then click the "Search for an Older Mac" button. Then it should work.

fozzette

Level 1

8 points

Nov 29, 2014 3:52 PM in response to Snoop Dogg

Thanks Snoop Dogg, I have not tried transferring files yet but now the symbols are showing up. Thanks again.

Memiehic

Level 2

393 points

Jun 19, 2015 12:42 PM in response to Fulgurite

Fulgurite wrote:

I have a similar issue.

Airdrop works fine between my MBA and iMac, yet when I just wanted to transfer some pictures from my iPhone (5S) to either my MBA or iMac, it does not work. The iPhone does not 'see' the iMac.

Oddly enough, when I want to transfer those very same pictures from my iPhone to my iPad by Airdrop, then it all works seamlessly.

cbell120l, I understand how you feel... The very reason why we pay a (hefty!) premium for Apple products, is because we simply want the stuff to work, not because we like to spend frustrating hours on all sort of forums in order to get the simplest things to work, like transferring some pictures between two devices from the same manufacturer, both running on software from that very same manufacturer.

Please Apple, it's 2014, this should NOT be a big deal!

edit: ok, I just found out that apparently iOS7 --> OS X (Mavericks) or v.v. is not supported. I wrongly assumed that "Airdrop" logo on both devices means that you can actually airdrop something... Hmmm.... great! 😮

And in 2015, with the latest software, I find my self seeking help on getting Air drop to work between my iPhone 5s and my iMac 5K. I had my firewall turned on the last time, So i turned it off and Airdrop worked after a minute of waiting time. Now a couple of month later, and I tried Airdrop, it does not work going from iMac to iPhone.

okay it seems to be the problem that If you are Airplaying from iPhone to iMac via Reflector on the iMac, it won't work... Seriously there could be some messages at least?!

oh and now it is stuck at Waiting..., no prompts on my iPhone to do something. And also iPhone sharing to iMac does not work now, iMac does not show up on iPhone.

Memiehic

Level 2

393 points

Jun 19, 2015 1:00 PM in response to Memiehic

had to do a new post because there were issues from this website when saving editing posts.

okay it seems to be the problem that If you are Airplaying from iPhone to iMac via Reflector on the iMac, it won't see the devices... Seriously there should be some messages at least?! oh and now it is stuck at Waiting..., no prompts on my iPhone to do something. And also iPhone sharing to iMac does not work now, iMac does not show up on iPhone.

It is taking a long long time to do this... and now my iPhone 5s is not showing up again on my iMac, now it shows up after a minute or 2... That's pretty bad... Waiting about 30 seconds, it says Declined?!??!?! I never got a prompt on my iPhone.

Also text forwarding has NEVER worked. Even when the firewall is turned off. (STRANGELY ENOUGH THIS JUST WORKED for the first time ever), I tried it yesterday it didn't work, no code was shown.. I guess Airplay / Reflector interrupted that.

Memiehic

Level 2

393 points

Jun 19, 2015 2:36 PM in response to Memiehic

Okay so after 2 hours, it finally worked, and at good speeds... by restarting the iPhone. It also can support Airplay and not buggy. So I guess iOS is and still isn't rock solid, The last time I have restarted my iPhone was probably several weeks ago if not month. Eventually it'll trip up as I use Airplay pretty much everyday. Since the original issue was the iPhone didn't show up on the iMac, and disable Airplay was the solution, I guess Airplaying to a 3rd party Airplay server caused some kind of bug in iOS to not display the Airdrop file accept request.

iirrff

Level 1

0 points

Aug 26, 2015 6:35 AM in response to Snoop Dogg

Hey man.

I can't seem to even load airdrop on my computer. It has worked previously but now when I click on it in my finder the attached screen appears. I have tried every trouble shooting measure. Wondering if you have any thoughts.

Irf