I can't AirDrop to my work MacBook Pro

[UTH]

I have AirDrop switched on, to 'everyone' but when I try and AirDrop from my iPhone to my laptop, it just says 'no one nearby' on my phone. Not really sure what else to try given that the settings are all 'on'. My old work macbook had no trouble with this, but this new one just won't work. Am I being dumb? I don't want to log into my personal iCloud on my work laptop, so not sure if that makes a difference?

[somouk]

Iif you have bluetooth and wifi enabled on both devices it should just pick it up. Which version of the OS do you have on the Mac?

[UTH]

somouk said:

Iif you have bluetooth and wifi enabled on both devices it should just pick it up. Which version of the OS do you have on the Mac?

Yep, all is on!
11.6 it looks like?

[somouk]

And if you hit Cmd and Space and search Airdrop you get the window up on the mac and it shows as discoverable?

Both machines on the same wifi network?

[stewies_minion]

Your work as in my self provided MacBook for my business?

Or a MacBook provided by an employer?

If the latter could MDM be in play? InTune etc...? "Corporate" could have switched it off..

[thebraketester]

For some reason airdrop seems to be very sensitive to OS version between devices. Same on iOS too, it won't work if the two devices are not "compatible" if the eyes of apple software (whether that be on purpose or not I don't know)

[UTH]

stewies_minion said:

Your work as in my self provided MacBook for my business?

Or a MacBook provided by an employer?

If the latter could MDM be in play? InTune etc...? "Corporate" could have switched it off..

MacBook provided by my employer.....I guess they might have switched it off? They have certainly stopped me changing the time it takes before the laptop goes to sleep which is annoying, can't leave it alone for more than 60 seconds!

[UTH]

somouk said:

And if you hit Cmd and Space and search Airdrop you get the window up on the mac and it shows as discoverable?

Both machines on the same wifi network?

I've got the little airdrop symbol in the bar at the top and it's switched to 'everyone'.

Both on the same wifi, yeah.

[Richyvrlimited]

UTH said:

MacBook provided by my employer.....I guess they might have switched it off? They have certainly stopped me changing the time it takes before the laptop goes to sleep which is annoying, can't leave it alone for more than 60 seconds!

if it's a corp device it's likely turned off, I know I'd have it turned off if it was in my corporate environment. allowing file share between personal and corporate devices is not the best of ideas.

[UTH]

Richyvrlimited said:

UTH said:

MacBook provided by my employer.....I guess they might have switched it off? They have certainly stopped me changing the time it takes before the laptop goes to sleep which is annoying, can't leave it alone for more than 60 seconds!

if it's a corp device it's likely turned off, I know I'd have it turned off if it was in my corporate environment. allowing file share between personal and corporate devices is not the best of ideas.

Weirdly it was 'allowed' on my old one (same company) and also it does work if I log into my own icloud on the laptop, but I don't want to do that. Not the end of the world, I can work around it, but it was a useful feature.

[somouk]

UTH said:

I've got the little airdrop symbol in the bar at the top and it's switched to 'everyone'.

Both on the same wifi, yeah.

Interesting, I wasn't aware you could get an airdrop symbol up there on Mac OS. Definitely worth checking with cmd and space then typing airdrop to make sure as that seems to be the only way I can see on Google to access it other than the side bar of Finder.

[Murph7355]

UTH said:

Weirdly it was 'allowed' on my old one (same company) and also it does work if I log into my own icloud on the laptop, but I don't want to do that. Not the end of the world, I can work around it, but it was a useful feature.

Locking down Macs isn't something a lot of places were very good at until quite recently. The tools weren't as good/well understood. But it sounds like it's policy at play.

If it's for work purposes, talk to your support guys about how they would like you to transfer files.

If it's not, probably best to forget it.

Presumably when logged into your own iCloud account the Airdrop goes straight to that? (Do you even need Airdrop if you have iCloud? Can you not just use iCloud on both devices??) So it's not really hitting the device at all. Can you copy from your personal iCloud to the Macbook? (If so, sounds like a policy hole).

[UTH]

Murph7355 said:

UTH said:

Weirdly it was 'allowed' on my old one (same company) and also it does work if I log into my own icloud on the laptop, but I don't want to do that. Not the end of the world, I can work around it, but it was a useful feature.

Locking down Macs isn't something a lot of places were very good at until quite recently. The tools weren't as good/well understood. But it sounds like it's policy at play.

If it's for work purposes, talk to your support guys about how they would like you to transfer files.

If it's not, probably best to forget it.

Presumably when logged into your own iCloud account the Airdrop goes straight to that? (Do you even need Airdrop if you have iCloud? Can you not just use iCloud on both devices??) So it's not really hitting the device at all. Can you copy from your personal iCloud to the Macbook? (If so, sounds like a policy hole).

I'm not the most techy of people, so all I know is that when I did log into my icloud on the MacBook, airdrop from my phone worked, but then all my text messages started appearing on my laptop as well as my phone which I certainly didn't want, so I logged out.

It's not the end of the world, it's only really when I need to upload photos of my expense receipts that I used to airdrop the photo across, now I just email them to myself to get them on the laptop. Just a bit longwinded.

[UTH]

Mac updated to the latest IOS yesterday, AirDrop seems to work now!

[UTH]

And it has decided to stop working today. I just can't stand it when tech just decides to stop working for no obvious reason.

[geeks]

UTH said:

And it has decided to stop working today. I just can't stand it when tech just decides to stop working for no obvious reason.

There are reasons, maybe not obvious to you though. I work in this space. Typically Airdrop is disabled because it's an unsecured/unknown container. Anything can be passed back and forth including corporate sensitive data. It used to be a developer favourite, request a Mac as chances were IT had no idea how to manage it and thus they got away with murder on them, now they are easily managed and its no longer the key to do as you like. Not saying that's the case for you though.

[stewies_minion]

UTH said:

And it has decided to stop working today. I just can't stand it when tech just decides to stop working for no obvious reason.

It only worked temporarily until the MDM provider got wind and sorted it.

Big Brother is watching.