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Why is my AirDrop not working despite having storage?

Okay, so I screen recorded a gameplay on my MacBook using shift + command + 5. The recording was near 30 minutes. When I finished rewatching the whole recording, I tried airdropping it to my iPhone, and I got an error message saying something like "Insufficient storage", which isn't true- I have more than 100gb of storage left on both my iPhone and my MacBook. The airdropping thing works every time but this time it was different. It glitched, I guess, because after it showed the error message I couldn't find it anywhere on my MacBook. I've tried all the methods I've seen, and I can't find it. What do I do ???


[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Posted on Jan 4, 2025 10:40 PM

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1 reply

Jan 5, 2025 7:54 PM in response to nailclinic

Hi, and welcome to the Apple (user-to-user) Community!


Re: Screen-Recording: I tried airdropping it to my iPhone, and I got an error message saying something like "Insufficient storage", which isn't true. I have more than 100gb of storage left on both my iPhone and my MacBook.


Am no expert in this area, yet your request deserves some response. Perhaps something below may help.

A 30 minute Screen-Recording may be quite a sizable file ... maybe the AirDrop timed-out ?

or

If you use iCloud, and were signed in, there may have been insufficient storage for the file there.


Another cause of AirDrop failure may be if the file that was being transferred had been saved / stored in a folder.


Your Mac may or may not be up-to-date with the newest compatible MacOS version .... (iPhone's iOS version too.)

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Re: ".... after it showed the error message I couldn't find it anywhere on my MacBook What do I do ?"


Seems the filename would be: "Screen Recording date at time.mov"

If you haven't already: You could try searching your Mac ...


Eg: put ".mov" (that's dot mov) in a Finder window search bar to see thumbnails of all your .mov files

If the Screen Recording shows up ... highlight it, and look in the status bar at the bottom of the window for it's location.


Also you might want to double-check the Files app on the iPhone, in case it transferred there anyway


Still not found ? Try another screen-recording and note the file-name ... see where it saves on Mac ... you may have a setting in place that determines where Screen-Recordings go.


All the best :-)

Why is my AirDrop not working despite having storage?

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