The way AirDrop works is that it’ll prompt a notification on the receiving device about the incoming transfer, and the recipient has to accept the transfer for AirDrop to initiate. This one is a little tricky, but AirDrop will most likely fail if your device, whether iOS or macOS, is in DND mode.

In case it is, flip it back to off and try again. This would’ve become obvious when you looked at WiFi and Bluetooth in the Control Center, but just in case, head on to Settings in your iOS device and make sure the Airplane Mode toggle isn’t on. The first thing you need to ensure is that Airplane Mode isn’t on. If either of the radios was turned off, turn it on and try AirDrop once again. On iOS, you can check the status for both using the Control Center, and for macOS, the menu bar will tell you that.

Therefore, on both the sending and receiving devices, ensure that both these radios are actually turned on. As mentioned earlier, AirDrop relies on Bluetooth and WiFi to communicate and transfer data. This is probably the no-brainer step, but one that you should definitely ensure before giving in and visiting Apple. Check your device’s radios and connectivity Still, there’s a lot you can try before visiting the Genius bar, and if you’re facing frustrations at the hands of AirDrop on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, here’s a list of things you can attempt to potentially fix the problem: 1. Since it relies on a low-latency, high-speed peer to peer combining the power of Bluetooth 4.0 LE radio and the on-board WiFi chip, it can be a little hard to troubleshoot AirDrop issues via traditional troubleshooting methods. AirDrop was introduced with iOS 7 and OS X Lion, and has since seen its fair share of controversy in terms of not always working the way users expect it to.

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