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AirDrop disappeared from Finder - no clue how to get it back!

D

drusoicy

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 2, 2007
59
65
AirDrop appeared in Finder with the original Dev Preview. When I upgraded to Developer Preview 2, AirDrop was gone. I figured it was some sort of bug, and when I did the Dev Preview 2 Update that was released today, I figured it would return - but I was wrong!

Any idea on how to bring AirDrop back into the Favorites area of the Finder sidebar?? It's not even an option in the Finder Preferences Sidebar section!
 
drusoicy said:
AirDrop appeared in Finder with the original Dev Preview. When I upgraded to Developer Preview 2, AirDrop was gone. I figured it was some sort of bug, and when I did the Dev Preview 2 Update that was released today, I figured it would return - but I was wrong!

Any idea on how to bring AirDrop back into the Favorites area of the Finder sidebar?? It's not even an option in the Finder Preferences Sidebar section!
Click to expand...

I just checked and it is still there for me after the update. I would say file a bug report. I don't know of a way to make reappear.
 
It is appearing in Finder preferences... DP2 & Update

FinderPref.png

Have you tried deleting finder.plist ?
 
20110425-k9qtspbemjxem9n5rtmfdh3qya.jpg


Oddly, it isn't even in the Finder preferences. Just totally gone! I haven't deleted the Finder plist file though, so I will try that next. Of course, it's a preview so things like this are to be expected ;)
 
drusoicy said:
Image

Oddly, it isn't even in the Finder preferences. Just totally gone! I haven't deleted the Finder plist file though, so I will try that next. Of course, it's a preview so things like this are to be expected ;)
Click to expand...

This happened to me on the first developer release on my 2010 6-Core Mac Pro. Oddly AirDrop worked/showed on our 2009 iMac. I filed a bug report and was informed AirDrop is still be worked out on various Broadcom AirPort Extreme WiFi cards. Developer Preview 2 now lists AirDrop on both our Mac's but I only got it working once, now neither system notices the other.

All part of the beta fun (although I wish Apple would release more beta's and not "Developer Previews" as they did with previous OS X releases)
 
2008 Early MBP here, and no airdrop. Fresh install of Lion DP4. Doesn't even show up in Finder preferences.
 
*LTD* said:
2008 Early MBP here, and no airdrop. Fresh install of Lion DP4. Doesn't even show up in Finder preferences.
Click to expand...

Maybe you have to have more than one Mac on your wireless LAN running Lion for Airdrop to appear. Since I haven't used Lion yet, this is just a guess; but hiding a feature from the user until you are in the right circumstances to use it does seem like an Apple-like thing that Apple would do (and have done in the past.)

Just a hunch. Although, I imagine you'd have more than one Mac...
 
roadbloc said:
Maybe you have to have more than one Mac on your wireless LAN running Lion for Airdrop to appear. Since I haven't used Lion yet, this is just a guess; but hiding a feature from the user until you are in the right circumstances to use it does seem like an Apple-like thing that Apple would do (and have done in the past.)

Just a hunch. Although, I imagine you'd have more than one Mac...
Click to expand...

Good point.

Only one Mac, though. Might have been a good idea to keep my 17-inch Core Duo iMac, but it found a new home a while back.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Airdrop appears on my 2011 MBP without another Mac running Lion. Doesn't appear on my Core Duo mini running DP1 at all.
 
Airdrop

I have a 2009 MacBook (white, plastic type) and it is not showing up for me either. I have DP 4 and no other Lion computers in the house. Solutions please?
 
CyBeRino said:
AirDrop is not supported on that hardware.
Click to expand...

Errr.... what? AirDrop does not require specific hardware. It's a bonjour filesharing tool.

EDIT: there is also no asterisk on Apple's feature site indicating that it is restricted to any specific hardware, as they do with feature lists on iOS updates.
 
Last edited:
Saladinos said:
Errr.... what? AirDrop does not require specific hardware. It's a bonjour filesharing tool.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid you're wrong. AirDrop does not use bonjour or the local network at all. It sets up your wifi hardware in a special dual-mode where it's both connected to a local network (or not, this doesn't actually matter) and running its own ad-hoc network. Not all wireless hardware supports this.

If it used bonjour and the local network, it would work over wired ethernet. It doesn't; instead it tells you to turn on wifi.

It doesn't depend on having a Core 2 Duo. It shows up fine on my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro (5,3). It's dependent on what wifi hardware is in your computer.
 
How can you tell if you wifi hardware can support the dual mode? Is there any way to check in System Profiler or something?
 
Mudsteam said:
How can you tell if you wifi hardware can support the dual mode? Is there any way to check in System Profiler or something?
Click to expand...

If you're running Lion, you'll have AirDrop if so. Otherwise you won't.

I don't think it's known what specific chipsets will support it, so I don't think it's easy to find out on Snow Leopard. So far it appears original intel Mac minis, first-generation C2D MacBooks and certain models of iMac are missing out.
 
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