Air drop over wifi with router?

Question

Air drop over wifi with router?

I have a wifi connection to the Internet. My Mac Desktop is connected via a Trendnet repeater and Ethernet cable. It has an airport card but it is turned off right now because the repeater had better signal to base. My laptop in another location uses wifi direct to the airport express base station.

I was wondering if it is possible to set up airdrop between the two computers without using the base station, or if there is a way to set up two wifi networks.

I.e., if I turn on the airport card in my desktop can I create a direction connection to the other computer which only has the one wifi setup?

The reason? My Internet is rural and tops out at 1.5 Mbps.

Thanks

Jeff

Mac Pro (Early 2008), OS X Mavericks (10.9), ATI RHD 2600 XT-10G RAM-2xQuadCore

Posted on Feb 24, 2014 2:19 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

CarlAVII

Community Specialist

Feb 26, 2014 9:15 AM in response to Jefferis Peterson

Hello Jeff,

Indeed, there are ways of using AirDrop to transfer files between your computers.

If you don't see nearby users in AirDrop

When you select AirDrop, OS X looks for other Macs that are close by and also using AirDrop. If you don't see someone in the AirDrop window:

Make sure Wi-Fi is turned on at both computers. Although you don't have to connect to a specific network, Wi-Fi needs to be turned on to transmit and receive files wirelessly.

Make sure that the recipient has selected AirDrop in the Finder. If you don't see this option in the Finder, refer to the Additional Information section of this article to make sure the computer is compatible with AirDrop.

Try moving the computers closer to each other. AirDrop is designed to work within a range of approximately 30 feet (9 meters). If you need to send a file to someone further away, consider using File Sharing, iCloud or email instead.