Airdrop failed to save

Temporary fix if using VLC Player

1. Airdrop like normal.
2. When prompted to approve transfer- Save to iCloud Drive.
3. Go to the "New" Apple Files App
4. Click Browse- Your file should be saved in "iCloud Drive"
5. Click the saved file
6. Click the box with arrow in top right corner- gives you more options for the file.
7. Scroll over to VLC Player.
8. It should now be listed in VLC like normal.

I found a solution to the problem but it is conditional.

Condition: only for videos and if the video is an exported file from final cut.

Solution: go to export file, settings and go the video codec section and change to H.264.

Export your movie and when ready you should be able to share through airdrop without any problems.

I hope you found this helpful if yes click and the helpful button.

ok so here's what I found out yesterday as I was struggling to upload a video that I had made via Premiere. My sequence settings were messed up I had a lower field scan instead of a no field/progressive scan. Once I changed that My iPhone 6 was able to receive my video. Hopefully, that helps you in some ways!

I had the same issue and found this thread. I have two different frequencies if you will of my wifi. I noticed that my Mac was on one and my iphone 7 was on the other. When I change so they were both on the same wifi the airdrop worked where previously I was getting the same error as you were. Hope that helps.

Not a very conventional way to export the movie but if you are desperate film the imovie using OBS (a free filming software I use regularly). The file will then be saved as a .mp4 Used this trick many times!

Just thought I'd share for those that arrived at this post in my situation - was receiving this error attempting to Airdrop a .mov file I'd created in AfterEffects. Converted it to .mp4 in Media Encoder and it transferred without issue. I know it's not a -free- solution, but hope this helps someone!

Had this problem with some image files copied from a shared google drive account. I thought it was the file extensions, but it turned out that Mac OS preserved some weird file permissions. To fix it, I did Get Info on the parent folder, made certain it showed my user had read+write access (bottom of the info pane), and then clicked the gear and chose Copy to Enclosed Items (you may have to provide an admin user password). That fixed the AirDrop issue and the files transferred without incident.

SAME PROBLEM!

Pretty fed up with having to do work arounds for everything with iPhones as soon as the model is not the most 'current'.

Is this Apples way of phasing out iPhone 6 users?? SO frustrating URG

I wish this was an option for me. I made a video using iMovie which doesn’t give me any export options for scan, file type, you’d think an Apple product could at least export a default file type that would airdrop to another Apple device. Guess I’ll be switching to PC when I upgrade, this company keeps sinking fast after Jobs died. R.I.P. Jobs, I miss your attention to details and your continued effort to achieve quality and stability.

In the two pages you get for the export, the first should have to do with the quality. Change the frame rate or something to custom ( I still made it the highest quality witch is supposedly what it was set to when the aid drop failed ) but anyway that seemed to do the trick

About 1 wk ago I started getting “item not saved, use iCloud” notifications every morning when I unplug my locked iPhone 8 from charging. I wasn’t using airdrop, wasn’t trying to move videos. Just started showing up. Any ideas?

I had this problem and found out what my issue was.

I was transferring videos from MacBook to iPhone and kept getting failed transfers. I like to shoot in 2.7K, it's a happy medium between 1080 and 4K. iPhones however I believe are not compatible with 2.7K, there's camera settings for 1080 and 4K but no 2.7K. A quick compress from my 2.7K videos to 1080 and boom, transferred.

Not sure if this will fix everyones problem but I guess my take away is make sure the device/s you are sending to are compatible with whatever type of file you are sending.

I was having the same issue, transferring a vertical video from my Macbook pro Late 14 (macOS High Sierra) to Iphone 7 Plus ( 12.0.1). I reexported the video from premiere. and the issue was fixed. Don't export in high bit rates and make sure the aspect ratio is correct.

Bit rate i used: VBR pass 1, 16 bit max to 24

Resolution: width by height, 1080 x 1920 ( Vertical Video for Insta Story)

Anyone find a fix for this? I was able to send older files via airdrop just fine then when I tried a newer video file it kept sending me to save it in iCloud