iOS9 Airdrop to Mac not working

Trying to connect iPhone 6+ iOS9 to 2013 iMac OS X 10.10.5 via Airdrop but not showing up on iMac or iPhone, worked perfectly before iOS 9.


iPhone can Airdrop to another iPhone and iMac can Airdrop to another Mac, but not iPhone to/from Mac.


iOS update was originally done OTA and have reinstalled through iTunes.


Have tried all suggestions I have come across but still they won't connect.


Anyone have similar problems?

iMac, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5), 21.5 in 2.9GHZ i5 16 GB

Posted on Sep 18, 2015 7:13 AM

Reply
409 replies

Oct 16, 2015 12:14 PM in response to Scarluc

Hey Scarluc, or to anyone else that has had success fixing AirDrop by deleting the "com.apple.Bluetooth.plist" file and rebooting, did AirDrop work for you before you upgraded to El Capitan, or did you buy a new machine recently that shipped with El Capitan installed that was failing to AirDrop? If it was a new machine, what model was it? Just curious.

Oct 16, 2015 12:40 PM in response to Snoop Dogg

Hi, Yes it worked before. My mac is a MBA early 2014, the problem started when I changed my iphone 6 to a 6s. but airdrop always worked, in yosemite with ios 8, and ios 9, and worked with el capitan to, the problem started when I changed the phone. I closed the icloud session on all my devices, then deleted the com.apple.Bluetooth.plist, I restart the mac, and then login in icloud. It works for me.

Oct 17, 2015 12:55 PM in response to deggie

Sure thing, but lately it kind of starts resembling it—unfortunately. I'm an Apple (Mac, iPhone, iPad) customer and what I've been noticing is that Apple quite has been exceeding everything regarding hardware and design (as usual) but the software dept. has been sinking release–after–release.

And this kind of issues, without a hotfix by Apple, is simply unacceptable.

Oct 17, 2015 3:23 PM in response to deggie

Sorry, but guess wrong. What I know is, for instance, that I've had—along with thousands of other Apple customers—to replace two iPhones and an iPad because of a software update (about 1 1/2 year ago) and what I've found is that Apple takes to long to fix critical issues with software—this being just one more of the many. Would the hardware and design departments work as these days the software do, and Apple would be out of business in no time,

What I hope here is that a solution for this problem pops up in the Software update, not discussing who should be fired at Apple.

Oct 18, 2015 3:08 PM in response to macrobin

I seem to have solved my problem, but I needed an iOS 8.4 device...

Here is what I did:

Turned on airdrop on a MacBook Air mid2013 running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5, and on my iPhone 5s running iOS 9.0.2.

They couldn't see each other, then I've turned on airdrop on an iPod touch 5th gen running iOS 8.4.

From the iPod I could see both. I have sent pictures to both of then and after that I was able to see the iPhone again on the Mac and vice versa.


Then I tried to send a video to the iPhone from the Mac. A waiting circle bar appeared around the iPhone symbol and it didn't seem to move so I have sent another pic from the iPod to the iPhone and after that the video started being transferred...

Oct 19, 2015 5:50 AM in response to macrobin

i had confusing AirDrop problems too.

  1. iphone 6 iOS 8.4 with MBA 2015 Yosemite= not working
  2. iphone 6 iOS 8.4 with iphone 5S iOS 7.1 = working good.
  3. iphone 5S iOS 7.1 with MBA 2015 Yosemite = working good.

when iOS 9 came out, i upgraded my iPhone 6 to iOS 9.0.1 , after that everything worked fine.


But, when El Capitan came out few days ago, i upgraded my MBA from Yosemite to El Capitan.after installation progress finished, i tried airdrop, my MBA couldn't see my iphones and my both iphones couldn't see my MBA.

restarting many many times but still not working.few hours later, reverted back to Yosemite and everything back to normal.

in my case, the problem was in iOS 8.x and El Capitan.

i think AirDrop Problem is El Capitan's bug. so, Apple should fix this bug.

Oct 19, 2015 2:18 PM in response to macrobin

the Same here:


iMac 5k

ipad mini 4

iphone 5


imac will not recognise iPad or iphone. IPhone and iPad recognising each other but not recognising imac. The same network the same iCloud account

latest software.


COME ON APPLE HOW DIFFICULT CAN BASIC FILE SHARING BE TO DEVELOP ? ON MY OLD NOKIA 5210 I COULD SEND MONOCHROMIC GRAPHIC FROM MY WINDOWS 98 USING IRDA

i can't send basic photo from 2015 5K Machine to my iPhone. Tim claims to be the most Advanced iMac yet !!!!!!! What ??? STEVE WOULDN'T BE IMPRESSED !!!!!!!!

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

iOS9 Airdrop to Mac not working

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.