AirDrop offers a fantastic wireless file sharing option for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users, but not everyone wants it enabled. If you are a Mac user, you may find yourself in a situation where you want to disable AirDrop on Mac for some reason. Using AirDrop is super easy, and you’ll find that disabling the feature is easy too.
Whether you want to stop receiving incoming AirDrop requests for files, avoid a network conflict, perform troubleshooting, or just want to limit your network needs, it’s easy to disable AirDrop on macOS.
How to disable AirDrop on Mac
Disabling AirDrop in macOS is the same in all versions of macOS and Mac OS X, regardless of the system software version. Here’s how:
- Open Finder on Mac
- Go to AirDrop in the sidebar of the Finder window, or open the Go menu and choose AirDrop.
- Click the small blue text at the bottom of the AirDrop window that says “Allow me to be discovered by:” and select “No one” to disable AirDrop
When AirDrop is off, other devices searching for AirDrop targets can’t find you. This means that you cannot receive files or data sharing requests from anyone via AirDrop.
How to enable AirDrop on Mac
If you want to enable AirDrop on Mac anytime, just toggle the AirDrop allow options to “Contacts Only” or “Everyone” as follows:
- Open Finder on Mac
- Go to AirDrop in the sidebar of the Finder window, or open the Go menu and choose AirDrop.
- At the bottom of the window, click the “Allow me to be discovered by:” text and select “Contacts Only” or “Everyone”.
This will re-enable AirDrop and the Mac will be available for AirDrop requests.
You also need to make sure Bluetooth is turned on on Mac to use AirDrop successfully.
If you use AirDrop on Mac frequently, you might find it helpful to add an AirDrop icon to the Mac Dock for quick access.
