How to transfer files from my MacBook to my iPhone via Airdrop

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Level 1

8 points

How to transfer files from my MacBook to my iPhone via Airdrop

Hi, I'd like to transfer files from my Macbook to my iPhone via Airdrop.

So that's Macbook -> iPhone. How can I do that?

I've been doing it for years, but now when I use airdrop it goes to iCloud instead. I don't want my files to go to iCloud, not once, not at all, not ever - just from mac to iphone. What has changed? How do I stop it? How do I turn it off?

Please, please, please - can someone tell me how to tranfer with airdrop DIRECTLY from my mac to my iphone. I don't understand how my files have been hijacked by the 'middle man' iCloud....

Please don't send me links to Apple info and webpages - if you can just give me simple steps to revert to what I've been doing for years then that would be great.

Thanks for your help.

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Jan 10, 2024 03:09 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dsuden

Level 1

5 points

Jan 28, 2024 05:07 AM in response to John__Watson

Yes, this is terribly intrusive...I hate having things like this thrust upon us. I know Apple wants to get people to max out their cloud storage and upgrade to more, but this is taking things way too far. And the only way to stop it appears to be to turn off ALL syncing to the cloud. Ugly business.

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Answer 2

Jun 14, 2024 10:09 PM in response to John__Watson

Not sure if this wasn't available in older versions, but I'm on iOS 17.5 with macOS 14.4 and it works for me.

For some reason if I right click to "share" an item via airdrop, it tells me I need to put that in iCloud first. If I do put it in iCloud, It doesn't actually airdrop the files, it just forces me to wait for the upload to complete.. on my 5mb connection.. for my 15gb file.. then I have to download it from iCloud on my phone, while it just uses airdrop to send me to the right iCloud folder.

However, if I instead open the airdrop app on Mac, and drag the whole 15gb folder to my phone on the airdrop screen, it doesn't use iCloud at all and places them in my phones local download folder and only took about 2 minutes instead of waiting hours for iCloud.

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