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How to...use AirDrop

KevinJS

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Since there appear to be a number of people coming to the world of Apple lately who are not familiar with the system, I want to put together some "How it works" threads.

This one will show you how to transfer photographs from an iPhone to a Mac using AirDrop.

First off, the 2 devices need to be either on the same network.

Also, BlueTooth must be turned on, on both machines. There is no need to attempt to pair the computer to the phone. Any such attempt will fail anyway since iOS BlueTooth is very limited in what it will pair with.

AirDrop only requires that the required services are available. It makes the connections itself.

So you have the photograph on your iPhone that you want to transfer.

IMG_7891.PNG


Tap on the screen to bring up available options, then tap the "share" icon, bottom left,

IMG_7892.PNG


Now, when you look under AirDrop, you should see the name of devices that you can send it to. In this case, there is only one.

IMG_7893.PNG


So tap on the name of the computer and the file will be transferred. You'll get a notification telling you that you are receiving a photograph from a phone.

Screen Shot 2016-09-20 at 8.49.13 PM.png


The transfer is very fast and you may not have time to click on "Open" which will replace "Cancel" when the transfer is complete.

But don't worry. You'll find the photograph in your "Downloads" folder.


Screen Shot 2016-09-20 at 9.02.53 PM.png


And that's pretty well all there is to it. You can send multiple images by selecting them before starting the AirDrop.
 
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AirDrop is an awesome feature nobody seems to even know about. I use it all the time between my iOS devices mainly for transferring videos and photos. Also use it to transfer videos and photos to friends iPhones with ease.

What's great about it is it works BT to BT via ad-hoc, which makes transferring stuff super easy even when your not on the same wifi network as the other iPhone.

Nice write up BTW
 
Thanks @APX7000

That makes a good point. AirDrop is very useful for transferring between iOS devices, not just to Macs.
 
I've added info to the lead post. I was reminded yesterday that Bluetooth is required for AirDrop transfer. It's important to note that BT pairing is neither necessary nor possible. Turning it on is all that is required.
 
It seems that iOS 10 broke AirDrop. The phone was visible in Finder on Mac computers, but the computer was not visible to the phone. This bug was apparent in all 10.0 versions and was fixed by 10.1, so if you find AirDrop is not working check that the update is applied.
 
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