HT4783: Using AirDrop with OS X Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavericks

Learn about Using AirDrop with OS X Lion, Mountain Lion or Mavericks
jsealey

Q: Retina Mac with AirDrop missing

I have read the articles and come up with the problem many others are facing with having incompatible macbooks for AirDrop but for me that is not the case. I have a 2012 15" Macbook Pro with Retina Display and I absolutely do not have AirDrop in my finder. If I open finder and select the "Go" drop-down menu, it does not have an option for AirDrop.

 

Another thing I've tried is looking in the Finder>Preferences>Sidebar menu to check AirDrop but it is not in the list.

 

I've also found this other command that is supposed to "enable" AirDrop in incompatible Macs and thought I'd give that a try, but it had no effect.

 

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1

 

 

Thank you!

Jared Sealey

MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Feb 18, 2013 1:41 PM

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Q: Retina Mac with AirDrop missing

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  • by leroydouglas,

    leroydouglas leroydouglas Feb 18, 2013 1:35 PM in response to jsealey
    Level 7 (22,887 points)
    Notebooks
    Feb 18, 2013 1:35 PM in response to jsealey

    Finder >Preferences>Sidebar>AirDrop

  • by jsealey,

    jsealey jsealey Feb 18, 2013 1:42 PM in response to leroydouglas
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2013 1:42 PM in response to leroydouglas

    Sorry I just revised my questions to include that I tried this as well. Unfortunately is does not exist in this menu either. Thank you for your response though.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Feb 18, 2013 1:56 PM in response to jsealey
    Level 9 (70,011 points)
    iTunes
    Feb 18, 2013 1:56 PM in response to jsealey

    Curiosity question. Doesn't your Finder/Preferences/Sidebar list look like this?

     

    Screen Shot 2013-02-18 at 4.45.13 PM.png

     

    You might try this:

     

    Finder Problems

  • by jsealey,

    jsealey jsealey Feb 18, 2013 2:17 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2013 2:17 PM in response to Eric Root

    Looks like this...

     

    Screen Shot 2013-02-18 at 2.15.09 PM.png

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Feb 18, 2013 2:19 PM in response to jsealey
    Level 9 (70,011 points)
    iTunes
    Feb 18, 2013 2:19 PM in response to jsealey

    Any luck with the Finder troubleshooting suggestions?

  • by jsealey,

    jsealey jsealey Feb 18, 2013 2:39 PM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 18, 2013 2:39 PM in response to Eric Root

    I went through the link you gave, followed the directions to delete my .plist files, logged out, logged back in and relaunched finder, but it unfortunatly didn't work.

     

    I haven't found a solution yet, although I have an idea of what might be the problem...

     

    When I bought my Retina Macbook, I had an image of Lion that was created and installed by my work at the time and a couple months later I upgraded to Mountain Lion.

     

    It could be that the image of Lion I received from my work didn't include AirDrop, although I never had a reason to check prior to installing Mountain Lion.

     

    If it didn't include AirDrop, and it was something standard in Lion, it would make sense that upgrading to Mountain Lion wouldn't install AirDrop for me.

     

    If what I'm thinking is true, then I would need to find some way to get AirDrop installed and not just activated.

     

    Any suggestions?

  • by jsealey,

    jsealey jsealey Mar 28, 2013 7:03 PM in response to jsealey
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 28, 2013 7:03 PM in response to jsealey

    I never did find a solution to this problem.

     

    In my latest attempt, I reinstalled Mountaion Lion by:

    1. Rebooting

    2. Holding Command+R

    3. Using the disk utility

     

    and I still have no airdrop on my 2012 15" Macbook Retina (which is definitely on the list of compatible macs for airdrop). If anyone else has suggestions please let me know!

  • by jsealey,Solvedanswer

    jsealey jsealey Mar 28, 2013 7:18 PM in response to jsealey
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 28, 2013 7:18 PM in response to jsealey

    Oh finally I've found a solution!

    There is an apple default value for disabling airdrop. I just had to enter this into the terminal:

     

    defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser DisableAirDrop -boolean NO

  • by scseh,

    scseh scseh Apr 20, 2016 5:46 AM in response to jsealey
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 20, 2016 5:46 AM in response to jsealey

    Initially, I entered this command in terminal.  Checked Finder Preferences, AirDrop still did not appear.

     

    The following is what I did to get it to work.

     

    1.  Entered into Terminal defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser DisableAirDrop -boolean NO

    2.  Entered into Terminal defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1

    3.Reboot Macbook

    4.  AirDrop appeared in Finder Preference > Sidebar > Favorites section