Handoff and AirDrop not working in El Capitan

Airdrop is a nice idea but it simply does not work. Rather than pull our hair out trying to debug flawed software, it is much easier to use good software like Dropbox or Evernote to sync files across devices, any devices, not just Apple-approved devices. Just too darn bad that one of the world's largest IT corporations can't get a handle on file sharing.

The solutions here were not helpful to me. I chatted with Apple support, and they solved my problem in about 5 minutes. They had me check Settings->Messages -> Send & Receive and make sure I was logged into iCloud, as well as having my phone number registered. The minute that I logged into iCloud, both my laptop and iPhone received the same messages.

Occam's razor.

Finally I get it working, I do all the steps and it doesn't helps.

After that

1. restart the iPhone

2. turn on airplaine mode

3. turn off wifi and bluetooth

4. turn off airplaine mode

5. turn on wifi and bluetooth

So now I get it working for first time 😉

WE have a 2015 iMac, 2 iPads and 2 iPhones. All AirDrop/handoff well except...

the oldest is an iPad 4 which will not AirDrop with the iMac in either direction. One just does not see the the other ever!

i Haven't a cure but I do have what is for me a bulletproof workaround.

i Disconnect the iPad 4 from my network but leave wifi on ( I have to forget the network) and instantly the Mac sees the iPad and vice-versa and I can AirDrop.

if anyone knows why this works I'd love to know. My bipac 7800n router is 10 feet from the Mac. Whether this has anything to do with it I don't know.

I tried doing a several number of times , logged out of iCloud id as well from my phone as well

it doesnt work .

thing i want to know is when i connect to the internet on my WiFi it doesnt work but when i connect it to the hotspot of any other iPhone then hotspot seem to work from other iPhone & Mac

Can you figure this out ?

Although these discussions have been useful in the past, some, like this topic, range through unproductive troubleshooting and random suggestions.

Apple has made it much easier, both at the Genius bar, and online, to answer these questions via chat or phone. Save your energy; no one in this discussion really seems to know what they're talking about. Get some real help.

Here's how I solved it on my mac. Could send from my Macbook Pro to the iPhone 6S. On my iPhone, the Mac suddenly stopped showing up.

1. Open bluetooth preferences on you man on the right side of the menu bar.

2. Remove all devices showing in the list. Voila. My iPhone popped up straight away.

3. Reconnect any device (like the bluetooth mouse).

Good luck and god bless Apple 🙂

Genius ! I changed my WIFI security setting from WPA/WPA2 to just WPA, Voila ! my airdrop is not working.. finally solved a 6 months issue !!

No need of PRAM reset , BT plist delete , setting nothing !

not working, i want my AirDrop work but it doesn't!! tried all u guys wrote but still not working.
MacBook Pro OS X El Capitan 10.11.6
iPhone 6 iOS 10.0.1
WHAT CAN I DO?!?!?!

Don't know if is the phone or the mac... i'm in trouble...
Please some help!

Hi,

Don't know what your thoughts are but you could try installing MacOS Siera or alternatively backing up your current system and re-installing 10.11. I've been running Siera since the beta's and with my set-up at least it's been rock solid. Double check prior to installing on the forums that you don't have any unique software or Logitech mice!

I was frustrated too with not being able to airdrop after upgrading to El Capitan. I found my answer when i went to System Preferences and clicked on the Sharing icon and checked the Bluetooth Sharing box.

I have early 2013 Macbook Pro and iPhone 6s with iOS 10. AirDrop sometimes works from iPhone to Mac but never from Mac to iPhone. I have tried everything I can think of to resolve this but nothing seemed to help. So I started Console and then AirDrop in Finder to see if there are any error messages. There was an Error from AddressBookSourceSync[1868] [CardDAVPlugin-ERROR] -getHomeInfo and my iCloud.com URL for contact info. I opened Contacts and checked my contact info. There was 3 different entrys so I deleted all the other ones than the one with the little icon on it and AirDrop started working. Now my iPhone appears immediately in Radar. I hope this helps.

Can't find a link to chat with online support. Does anyone have one? Can only seem to find a phone number

I have an iMac Mid 2010 on El Capitan 10.11.6 and an iPad Air on iOS 8.0.2 (12A405). My iMac doesn't seem to pickup the iPad even though I've connected them via Bluetooth and vice versa.

Hey guys, for whats its worth i have been battling trying to get my air drop to work on my 2013 New Mac Pro. It works between my phone and others phone, as well as between my phone and my mac book air.

I then figured out that the minute i go into system preferences and log out of iCloud it would instantly start working. If the airdrop window was in the background, the sec it finishes the log out all my devices pop up in air drop. So after trying to uncheck one by one all the iCloud services to see if there was some kind of conflict I finally found a solution.

I actually had to log out of iCloud on my mac book air, and re log in. after i did that i was able to log back into iCloud on the mac pro and now its all working great. What tipped me off is that on my phone and mac pro (with iCloud logged out) my mac book air would show up but the computer name was off.. it was displaying one of my email addresses instead... so after logging that machine out and back in I'm good to go.

moral of the story... i thing a lot of the issues have to due with the iCloud accounts across all devices. hope that helps someone.

I am running El Cap version 10.11.6 and am trying to airdrop an audiobook onto my ipad (since, for whatever reason, NONE of my audiobooks appear on my Ipad or my iphone's itunes)

BUT I my mac can not find either my Ipad mini 4 or my Iphone 7plus.

Feeling frustrated in Utah.