AirDrop fails transferring photos

I'm trying to Airdrop 27 photos from my iPhone 17 Pro Max (iOS 26.1) to my MacBook Air (MacOS Ventura 13.7.8 (22H730)) and it keeps failing. I have an album of the 27 photos in my phone; they are all photos taken with standard settings on my phone, of average size, no large videos or anything. My MacBook has 118GB of storage remaining. I can select my MacBook to AirDrop to, and a couple times I heard the chime on my computer telling me about an AirDrop (which has since stopped chiming after I restarted wifi/Bluetooth), but I have never gotten the pop-up notification to accept/decline the AirDrop. My phone says "Waiting", but then the AirDrop fails, and a notification pops up on my computer screen telling me it failed with the thumbnail of one of the pictures. I initially thought maybe it was a corrupted photo file, so removed that photo and tried again, but it just pulls a different picture when it says "AirDrop failed." Both devices are on the same WiFi network, and my phone is sitting on the counter inches away from my computer.


I have:

  1. Restarted both my phone and my computer.
  2. Updated the MacOS on my computer to the latest available to it ((MacOS Ventura 13.7.8 (22H730))
  3. Turned off WiFi and Bluetooth, and then turned them back on on both devices.


Sounds silly, but I desperately need these photos on my computer to put together a presentation. Would physically connecting my phone to my computer with the cord (like in the old days, ha!) help? I haven't done that in so long I worry I'd accidentally delete everything off my phone.


I'd appreciate any suggestions/advice to help me remedy this. Thank you!

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 13.7

Posted on Dec 3, 2025 9:34 AM

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AirDrop fails transferring photos

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