AirDrop iPhone SE – Using AirDrop Between iPhone SE and MacBook Air

airdropiosiphonemacbook promacos

I'm trying to set up AirDrop to send files between my macbook and my iPhone.

For some reason it doesn't work at all. I turned it on both on the macbook and my iPhone SE and my iPhone is not shown in the Finder nor my macbook on iPhone's screen.

How to set this up?

Best Answer

Make sure your iPhone and Mac are connected not only to the same SSID but also the same band (2.4 vs. 5 GHz). Some routers will not bridge the necessary multicast traffic between the different bands.

Additional troubleshooting steps (this assumes your Wi-Fi network is being provided by your router, which is true for most people)

  1. Disable either the 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz network in your Wi-fi base station (router) so that we can force the Macbook and iPhone to be on the same Wi-Fi band.
  2. Verify your router's firmware is up to date, and apply the update if one is available.
  3. Look in advanced settings in router and look for settings like multicast filtering and make sure they are disabled—Bonjour requires multicast traffic to work properly
Related Question