Why can’t my iPhone 16 Pro Max discover my MacBook Air for AirDrop?

"Why can’t my iPhone 16 Pro Max discover my MacBook Air for AirDrop?: My wife just got a 16 Pro Max. I’ve got a 15 Pro Max and an M3 MacBook Air. I’ve tried everything but the 16PM can’t even see the MacBook to airdrop. It can see my 15PM and the MacBook can see and send to the 16PM but it can’t see the Mac. We’re all on the same network, tried all the settings …. nothing. Everything is on the clearest iOS and the fact that she can airdrop to my phone shows that it should be working, just for some reason the Mac doesn’t even show up."

-------

Troubleshooting iPhone an Mac AirDrop:

I. Start with Restarts:

A. Restart your Mac:

Save what need be, and then restart your Mac.

B. Force Restart your iPhone:

Save what need be, and then force restart your iPhone: Force Restart iPhone - Apple Support

II. Some sites to refer to:

• Start Here: Use AirDrop to Share Photos from Photos on Mac - Apple Support

• Use AirDrop to Transfer Pages Documents - Apple Support

• How to Use AirDrop on your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

• If your Mac can’t Connect to Another Computer - Apple Support

• How to Use AirDrop on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

• Use AirDrop on iPhone to Send Items to Nearby Devices - Apple Support

• Transfer Files Wirelessly Between your iPhone and Computer with eMail, Messages, or AirDrop - Apple Support

“Nothing works. Both phones are on the same network, bluetooth is on, both Mac and phone are set to 'Everyone'.[…]”

———-

Thank you for the followup reply.

On Both Devices…

Turn ON:

• WiFi
• Bluetooth

and…

Turn OFF:

• Personal Hotspot
• VPNs

Source: airdrop not working

wifi and Bluetooth are on, there are no active VPNs hotspots or firewalls.

———-

Thank you for the followup reply.

Try what else is provided. Search for the same words on other search engines (ie bing.com and duckduckgo.com

“So in the end I was able to resolve this by adding my wife as an account on the MacBook and then she could see and airdrop to it from her 16PM. But that shouldn’t have had to be done surely? The whole point of airdrop is to allow, when set to everyone, anyone to send files. Still seems very odd but at least it’s working.”

———-

A New User Works:

Well, I recommend not making her an administrator user. A standard user is what to do here. Elsewise, she could intermittently make changes that she shouldn’t.