Where can I find airdropped files on my ipad?

Hi cdavis411. As you know, an iOS device cannot store a generic file in some "downloads" folder. It can only hand the file over to an app that can manage it.

What is the format of the image, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, raw, PDF, etc.?

What iOS versions do you have on the two devices?

Which app on the iPhone accepts the file?

Does the iPad have the same app?

I have seen the reply "open the file in the app that belongs to that file type" in more than one thread on this question. Yet that does not always answer the issue. On one occasion I had files that had read only permissions. To solve that I changed the file permissions to read & write before airdropping and the file/s showed up.

However, I am having this issue again but permissions is not the issue. I am able to airdrop an image to my iPhone SE not problem, but when I airdrop it to my iPad Pro, I cannot find the image/s. These are the same exact image files being sent to both devices from my MacBoo Pro.

Anyone with an answer that is not the same old "check the Photos app" is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Hi Diana,

The filetype is .jpg and it shows in the photos app on the iPhone iOS 10.3.2 after airdropping the file, but it does not show on the iPad iOS 10.3.2 after airdropping. Both devices have the photos app

This should be simple. Have you looked at the bottom of the Camera Roll album in the Photos app? I've found that all photos appear there in order of arrival. If you look instead in the Photos section, photos are ordered by date, so a photo with a date in its metadata won't appear at the bottom of the Photos section.

This link resolved it for me. I airdropped a video from iPhone to iPad. To find it, I opened up the photos/videos app and could find the airdropped file there.

I think this is what Churchill meant when he said open the app that will use the file, but sometimes brevity is not helpful.

This link explained it well enough for me to figure it out: http://osxdaily.com/2017/01/20/where-airdrop-files-go-located/

Sorry, but I think it's you that doesn't understand the issue.

It worked like it did for you because the file was supported by the photos app.

This isn't the case for the OP and as such, they would have needed to select an app to open it in. Based on the information they gave that the list didn't contain any apps that seemed to be a sensible option for the file type, it seems logical that the file they were trying to AirDrop couldn't be opened on the OP's device.

Now I don't recall 100% but I think that back in 2015 there may not have been the option that we now have to save to iCloud Drive and as such there would be no point to AirDropping the file that the OP was trying to do in the first place.

Open an application which can use those files.

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Have you accepted them.

And what did you select.

Then I don't think you've accepted them.

If there is no app to open them in, they aren't much use are they.