airdrop between iOS 8 & Yosemite

This is so odd. Unlike most of you guys, I can airdrop fires from my iOS 8.1 devices to my rMBP but not the other way around. It says on my mac that they canceled the copy, after a few seconds of 'waiting' sign. Airdrop works fine between my iOS devices though. Does anyone have the same problem?

Hi,

Two days ago I had my first appointment at a Genius Bar... nice and genuinely supportive people but alas, no fix for the "Invisible Mac". Oddly enough, even though my rMBP could see my iPhone and a lot of surrounding "German iPod", "German iPhone" etc. it couldn't see the iPhone 6 of the Genius Bar person who tried to help me... so the conclusion was that this is (A) not a hardware issue (the same issue persisted when the rMBP was booted in 10.10 from an Apple server) and (B) probably waiting for a miracle cure in a 10.10.x update... hmmm.

My Early 2011 Macbook Pro (Yosemite) and iPhone5s (iOS8.1) can not see each other on airdrop either.

However, Macbook Pro and my hubby's iMac Late 2010 can see each other. And iDevices can see each other.

For now, I can not get iDevice and Macbook/iMac see each other through airdrop ?!

Tried everything listed from previous posts.

Help ~

hi!

i came acros this article as i myself was having this problem..

coz i did want to use airdrop on my macbook pro mid 2012 to send a music file on my iphone 6 ios 8.1

i just figured out by recalling how i did it few days before...and tried doing this:

attach your iphone to ur macbook or imac using data cable...

drag ur file onto the airdrop contact..

Voilla!

it will prompt up on ur iphone as it did for me and wasnt showing widout it..

i know it dsnt solve the purpose of "air"-drop but this is a solution for our problem i gues!

hope this works for u and all of us encountering this problem!

:-D

After trying for days to make my iPad finally see my girlfriend MBA mid-2012 and getting trough a great compilation of manipulations to get this to work (see http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/how-use-airdrop-on-macs-wirelessly -share-files-3500407/), I tried a mix of some of them.

Here's what was working :

Girlfriend's iPad 4 linked to her Apple ID was able to see her MBA and vice-versa (and transfer files as well)

(after making bluetooth of the MBA visible once via bluetooth preferences, the iPad never failed to see the MBA again)

What was not working :

Any other IOS device (linked with another Apple ID)

What finally worked :

I activated the Guest account on the MBA

Logged into it

Connected it to my Apple ID (same as on my iPad mini)

Opened Airdrop on MBA

Opened Bluetooth prefs

MBA finally appeared on iPad

Back to my girlfriend's account, everything was still working.

Can't quite understand the link between the Apple IDs and AIrdrop, but it seems to actually be related.

Good luck to all.

Thanks Alterus!

I have tried this and it worked. Except that the moment I've logged out of the guest account things went back to the dysfunctional normalcy... but it proves that it works in principle. My feeling now is that there's something in my 16 year old user folder that prevents continuity from working properly. Now if I knew what it was!

No problem Samaki. In fact, I'm pretty happy that you tested it and returned back to me. I just need to add that before executing this little recipe, I did the usual Mac maintenance stuff:

1. repair disk and permissions in the recovery boot
2. reset the SMC
3. reset the PRAM or NVRAM

The fact that it worked under your Guest account reveals one important thing to me: this problem is absolutely not hardware related! The feeling I have is that there is some kind of identity validation procedure that goes wrong in the discovery process. I'm thinking about the same validation that skips the "Do you want to accept this file?" when the iPad's Apple ID is the same as the Mac's.

So, it is software related... Now Apple, please go to work. It is kind of sad to have such nice products and flaws like this that tint your reputation.

thanks again Samaki

i have an iphone 6 with latest ios, an imac from 2011, and a brand new retina 5k imac--both of the desktops on the latest os.

the two desktops can 'see' each other and i can xfer files back and forth. but neither one of them sees the iphone, nor does the iphone see them. i tried bt pairing and it works, but immediately goes to 'not connected' after the pairing. also, there doesn't seem to be a way to pair the phone with both desktops at the same time. all devices are on the same wifi network and all are logged in.

i've tried many variations on rebooting, turning wifi and bt off and on, and forgetting devices and re-acquiring them.

any suggestions welcome although i realize there's already 5 pages of such suggestions, but the bulk of that is wondering which model works or not and my 2011 imac does work, at least with the 2014 imac, so that shouldn't be the issue of the 2014 imac not seeing the iphone and vice versa.

tks, /guy

Hi Alteratus,

Have you been able to solve this puzzle? I had hopes for the first public beta of 10.10.2 but alas no relief.

Meanwhile I discovered that I can use all continuity features (including airdrop) when using my iCloud credentials on a guest account on my rMBP. So it seems that it's something related to software / third party plugins on my account that prevent continuity (well, the three Bluetooth-based protocols: airdrop, instant hotspot and handoff) from working normally...

Hmmm.

I had this problem with my iPhone 5S and my Macbook Pro 2012. Continuity initially worked, then didn't for a few months, but it seems with the latest software update, I have continuity again. I'm not sure if it's the latest iOS update, or the one previous, but it all works again. Hope you have better luck, OP!

Sending files to and from an older Mac

If a Mac you're using with AirDrop was manufactured before 2012, you can send and receive files with other Mac computers + [not iOS devices via AirDrop]

Mac Basics: AirDrop lets you send files from your Mac to nearby Macs and iOS devices - Apple Support

From that same link:

In order to transfer files between a Mac and and an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch

• your iOS device needs to include a lightning connector
• your iOS device needs iOS 7 or later installed
• your Mac needs to be a 2012 or later model with OS X Yosemite installed
• Your Mac and iOS device both need bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on. You do not have to be connected to a specific Wi-Fi network.

To transfer files between two Mac computers, you need the Mac models listed below with Wi-Fi turned on and OS X Lion or later installed.

• MacBook Pro (Late 2008 or newer)*
• MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 or newer)*
• iMac (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2009 with AirPort Extreme card, or Mid 2010)

*The MacBook Pro (17-Inch Late 2008) and the white MacBook (Late 2008) do not support AirDrop.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

This is hilarious for me. I have three imacs I deal with. I have my brand new one, which does the AirDrop just fine, although I recently tried to AirDrop a zip file from the computer to my phone and it said I didn't have the right application. But it works great with pictures. Then I have my secondary iMac at home, which is older than dirt (2008), haven't updated to Yosemite on it and I don't even bother with AirDrop on that. I have to use iCloud. No biggie. It's a secondary computer so... But here's the big one...my iMac at work is a late 2010 and I gotta say, everything about Yosemite blows on this iMac. Whatever issues I have with the computer at work are non-existent on my iMac at home.

So I get it. Apple wants us to buy new computers. Fine. Start pricing them so that I don't have to take a mortgage out on my house to afford one.

please try. for me, it works: Possible solution to non-visibility of a mid-2012 mac in iOS 8's airdrop

AirDrop is working "okay" (works sometimes, but not always) between iPad and iPhone 6. AirDrop option appears in MBA (Yosemite) but none of the Airdroppable iDevices appear.

Lots of people with this question, but still no answers?

Apple, If this is simply a bug, let us know so we don't waste time trying to use. And perhaps give us visibility to when you hope to fix.

Turn your firewall off and see if it works. If it does, you are blocking an application that needs to accept incoming connections. Try allowing sharingd