AirDrop - Should it be this hard?

[gotwicks]

Running OS X Yosemite. Wanted to do the AirDrop. Bluetooth and WiFI both on. How come I don't get the option to pick who should see me under the airdrop signal Do I have to select something in "Sharing" ? Here's what it look like. All the tutorials I've found on youtube show some text under the symbol that says "don't see who your looking for?" .... why not mine?

 

[bobtomay]

Is your Mac one of the following?


MacBook Air (2012 or newer)
MacBook Pro (2012 or newer)
iMac (2012 or newer)
Mac mini (2012 or newer)
Mac Pro (Late 2013)

 

[gotwicks]

No. It's a mid 2011

 

[chscag]

No. It's a mid 2011

It doesn't support Air Drop unless you implement a hack first. See the following article on how to implement Air Drop on your Mac. Make a backup before doing the procedure.

 

[gotwicks]

So bizarre...why does it even show it in my finder...grrrr

 

[bobtomay]

Because newer Macs can create the connection to which yours can connect - supposedly.

Have a read through this article.

Based on all the hassles I've read - haven't even tried it since my Mac is older than that also.

 

[chscag]

I've done the hack on an older MacBook (2008 model) and it works OK with a newer Mac or even an older one which has also been hacked. Personally, I do not find Air Drop to be useful even though my newer iMac supports it along with my iPhones.

 

[johnodd4]

Terminal 101: Enable AirDrop on an Older Mac | Mac|Life

this terminal command will fix airdrop on all macintoshes enjoy

 

[gotwicks]

Thanks for all your help folks!! So glad to know it wasn't blatantly in front of me and I was missing it!

 

[Slydude]

I've done the hack on an older MacBook (2008 model) and it works OK with a newer Mac or even an older one which has also been hacked. Personally, I do not find Air Drop to be useful even though my newer iMac supports it along with my iPhones.

That's good to know. I was contemplating doing this when I read the article but needed to make sure I have a backup first. My Time Machine backups are not working at the moment because the Time Capsule is being a bit twitchy.