AirDrop - A bag of hurt in general? Any alternatives?

[Molcroft]

Is it just me, or is AirDrop often not working for any of you?

Me and my wife often tries to AirDrop photos to each other but most of the times it's just not working. Either it just shows "waiting" on the sending phone or "denied" even though the receiving phone has accepted the files. Both phones have the same settings for AirDrop and turning on/off Airplane mode doesn't help.

Today we had to restart both phones twice to make it work. It's just frustrating.

We both have the latest iOS-version on our phones (12 Pro and 12 Pro Max)

Any suggestions, and/or can anyone of you recommend any alternative to AirDrop?

 

[cupcakes2000]

Works really well for me- sorry to say for you! It’s fast and efficient and I use it regularly to get files (even large ones) between my iPad iPhone and Mac mini and also to send photos to my girlfriend as it’s much faster than messaging them.

 

[macintoshmac]

Is it just me, or is AirDrop often not working for any of you?

Me and my wife often tries to AirDrop photos to each other but most of the times it's just not working. Either it just shows "waiting" on the sending phone or "denied" even though the receiving phone has accepted the files. Both phones have the same settings for AirDrop and turning on/off Airplane mode doesn't help.

Today we had to restart both phones twice to make it work. It's just frustrating.

We both have the latest iOS-version on our phones (12 Pro and 12 Pro Max)

Any suggestions, and/or can anyone of you recommend any alternative to AirDrop?

I know you have said "even though the receiving phone has accepted the files" which means technically there should not have been these issues, but still:

1. Please go to Settings > General > Reset > Network Settings and clear them out.
2. Switch Wi-Fi back on, and connect both devices to the same Wi-Fi network, if.
3. Switch Bluetooth On on both devices.
4. Check AirDrop settings once again (from the Control Centre) to make sure it is enabled and set it to Contacts Only on both devices.
5. AirDrop needs both devices to be unlocked and active. If after the connection is made, one device gets automatically locked or the user uses the side button to lock the screen, transfer is likely to fail.
6. If the sender starts doing anything else with the device when the transfer is in progress, it might fail. This is not applicable for transfers initiated from macOS. Also, I am not sure of this, I have an inkling about this from experience, I may be wrong.

Let us know if this works for you. You are using the 12 series, so you are going to be within warranty for sure. If this does not work, just put the load on the Apple Geniuses and have them resolve this issue for you. Simple as that.

AirDrop is not a bag of hurt. It is a neat and a fast way to transfer files between Apple devices.

 

[Molcroft]

Thank you guys for your replies.

It's a bit of hit and miss with AirDrop for me right now.

I mainly try to AirDrop photos from the Photos app. This evening I transfered around 50 photos in batches of 5-ish, after that it just stopped working.

The sending phone just got "Waiting" and nothing more when trying to AirDrop photos. Switching WiFi on/off, Bluetooth on/off, and killing the Photo app didn't help.

After five-ish tries the receiving phone got the question to accept the photos or not. I pressed "accept" but it still showed "Waiting" on the sending phone. After a few seconds the receiving phone showed an error message, but the photos was transferred ok besides the message. The sending phone was still showing "Waiting". Tried sending more photos but then it was back to not working at all again.

If I restart both phones AirDrop is back to normal again.

Since it's working when restarting the phones, I can't see that any settings may cause this.

Oh well, I'll guess I'll have Apple look at the phones.

 

[smotania]

I have the same issue, and its happening for a while now I think some time after iOS14 got released. If i havent seen this thread I wouldnt have acknowledge it, but i agree its pretty annoying when i want to send pictures/videos i have to try multiple times until it succeeds if it does. It did it on my iPhone 11 and now is the same with the 12 pro. Pretty annoying hopefully it will get back to normal with iOS15

 

[icanhazmac]

I have intermittent success between my phone and my MBP, as the OP experienced sometimes I just get waiting or worse yet no response at all.

Edit: I also agree with @smotania that it appears to have started with iOS 14

 

[posguy99]

AirDrop, like the other Handoff features, is pretty much useless. When it even sees the other device, it's hit-or-miss at best whether it can actually complete a transfer.

Best to disable it.

For occasional use, I've found Instashare handy. Your mileage may vary.

 

[yeahtyeaht]

AirDrop, like the other Handoff features, is pretty much useless. When it even sees the other device, it's hit-or-miss at best whether it can actually complete a transfer.

Best to disable it.

For occasional use, I've found Instashare handy. Your mileage may vary.

Never had any problems with AirDrop

 

[maccompaq]

AirDrop works extremely well for me & my family with a multitude of IOS versions. I just discovered that it works great with my iMac also. It is such a time saver.

 

[bukalemun]

AirDrop seems to have a bug on iOS 14 which did not happen on earlier versions. What always works for me is as follows:

When you tap to share something, you'll probably see the other device as a destination on the share sheet. Don't tap on that. Instead tap on the main AirDrop icon on the sheet, and then tap on the device on the newly opened sheet. It never failed to work via this method for me.