IOS – AirDrop Not Working When Signed Into iCloud

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I seem to only be able to AirDrop to/from one of my Apple devices to another if one of them is signed out of iCloud. I have all my devices (iPhone X, 2017 iMac High Sierra, 2017 MacBook Air High Sierra) all signed in to my iCloud account (the same account). The devices cannot see each other in AirDrop unless I sign one of them out of iCloud.

For example, if I sign my MacBook Air out of iCloud, then my MacBook Air shows in my iMac's AirDrop and I can freely transfer files to it. Once I sign back into iCloud, it goes away.

Note: I can see and AirDrop to any of my colleagues' devices just fine across all of my devices. I just can't send to any of my own devices unless I sign out of iCloud.

I've tried all of the standard AirDrop troubleshooting (Making sure Bluetooth is on, same Wifi, update all devices, restart, etc).

Best Answer

I finally found a solution that worked for me. This seems unrelated but it definitely was my issue. It also fixed my issue with Apple Watch not being able to unlock my Mac. Below is what worked for me.

On your Mac:

  1. Open up Messages App
  2. Go to Messages > Preferences
  3. Select Accounts Tab
  4. Select Blocked Tab
  5. Locate and delete any instances of your own phone number and/or email addresses
  6. Close and wait ~5 minutes for iCloud to sync the changes across all your devices

On IOS:

  1. Go to Settings -> Messages -> Blocked
  2. Same as step 5 and 6 above

After performing those steps Airdrop worked perfectly across all devices and, as a bonus, I was able to unlock my Mac with my Apple Watch again (I was previously getting "your mac was unable to communicate with your apple watch" error / "IDS device not cloud paired").

Hope this helps others!

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