Skip to Content

AirDrop: Lion's new way to transfer files

by Steven Sande Jul 21st 2011 at 2:30PM

One very cool new feature in OS X Lion is AirDrop. It's a way to leverage your home or office Wi-Fi network to send files to others who are also running Lion by just dragging and dropping those files onto an icon representing the other person. In this short post, I'll show you how AirDrop works and point out a few gotchas.

AirDrop is zero-configuration file transfer software; you don't need to really do any setup or configuration, and you don't even need to have a Wi-Fi network as AirDrop uses peer-to-peer Wi-Fi between Macs that want to use it. All it requires is a Mac running Lion, and once a user opens the AirDrop interface (found in the Finder sidebar) his Mac becomes visible to other Macs using AirDrop. One caveat: some Macs capable of running Lion appear to be unable to use AirDrop thanks to an older Wi-Fi card, but Macs after 2009 appear to be working OK as of today. The other Mac appears as a round icon showing the contact photo for that Mac.

If I want to send files from my Mac (the lower icon) to my other Mac (the one at top), all I need to do is drag a file, group of files, or a folder to the upper iCon and drop it. AirDrop responds by verifying that I want to send the file, and when I tell it to send, the recipient gets a request (below).

The recipient can either choose to save the file and open it immediately, or just save it. The file is saved into their Downloads folder. The file transfer is encrypted using TLS and AirDrop sets up a firewall that keeps anyone outside of your connection from accessing your computers.

To take your Mac off of the AirDrop "radar screen," you just close the Finder window or click anywhere outside of AirDrop. If another sender is in your Address Book and has signed in with their Apple ID, their name appears below their AirDrop picture and can be used to validate their identity. You can sign in with your Apple ID in System Preferences > Users & Groups and click Set for your Apple ID.

It's a quick, secure, and -- dare I say it -- fun way to share files with others within Wi-Fi range, and I can see AirDrop being used a lot by Mac users at conferences and in meetings. Although it's not a marquee feature of Lion, AirDrop is one that frequently get used.

The images used in this article are taken from the upcoming Apress book Taking Your OS X Lion to the Max.

View Tags
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum Comment Moderation Enabled. Your comment will appear after it is cleared by an editor.

27 Comments

Filter by:
nxb3942

Another great solution is Thru. Thru provides secure cloud-based managed file transfer services for enterprises with integration and manageability.

http://www.thruinc.com/products-services/secure-file-transfer/

March 14 2012 at 3:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nick Connors

My brother and i live in different countries from one another and we are forever sending emails with files to each other and it takes a long time. Is there a system similar to this where I can just drop a file off with out them being in Wi-Fi range of my computer.

October 08 2011 at 11:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Nick Connors's comment
Oleg

yes, google: Dropbox.

November 06 2011 at 6:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark Lilback

What really sucks is that AirDrop insists on adding a Downloads stack to your dock every time you transfer a file. I hate stacks and boy is it a pain in the ass to remove that stack every time I do a transfer.

Other than that, I love it. It is much easier than dealing with file sharing. I used to mostly use scp in Terminal to copy between my computers, but AirDrop is a nice replacement for non command line related files.

September 12 2011 at 4:43 PM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
larry_wall@mac.com

I called apple support about this feature not working for me. There is a compatibility issue to where it mostly works with newer machines. However, depending on type of computer will depend on how new. They gave me the following link that shows a list of supported computers which will clear things up:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4783?viewlocale=en_US

August 05 2011 at 12:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to larry_wall@mac.com's comment
thazbossesboss55

well i think it's a dangerous feature reason i said that is i don't need a user creeping on my files it don't matter if it is peer to peer or the fact you don't need internet usage . you could have photos private documents but that how i feel and you mac users have the right to comment with your opinion just know i will respect them if airdrop was that easy what else will apple make that makes internet not safe in my opinion i think airdrop is not safe i feel as though it's hacker material now i know i wouldn't creep on someone else computer using they files even if they gave me permission i wouldn't do it that reminds me of if you near a hotspot and if i'm near an unsecured network even though i have the privilege to use it i wouldn't first of all it's stealing and this is my idea on airdrop

August 05 2011 at 6:04 PM Report abuse -1 rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to thazbossesboss55's comment
Morg

First off, please learn to use sentences, because it's difficult to even follow what you're saying.

There is no more security risk in AirDrop than there is with Windows, Mac, or Linux file sharing, which every system can already do. There's no need to freak out over something you don't understand as soon as it sounds bad to you. Lots of technologies sound dangerous and really aren't.

October 01 2011 at 11:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down
Fritz

this would be a great feature if it would work with iOS devices

July 22 2011 at 9:58 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Kelmon

Roughly translated, it's a great feature if you and everyone else you want to share with is running a relatively modern Mac with Lion installed. That'd be a nice world to live it but I can safely say that I don't. Something that was cross-platform would have been much more useful. I can't speak for everyone but I know very few people who use a Mac as well so without a cross-platform solution we're largely back to tossing memory sticks around the room.

July 22 2011 at 7:55 AM Report abuse +1 rate up rate down Reply
D R

This is SO LAME. The least they could do would be to add BonJour support, so if you say, already have a working LAN, say with GigE, it could transfer the file an order of magnitude faster to the other computer, as well as enabling it to work with millions of Macs without this magic WiFi chip.

July 22 2011 at 1:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
sbalermac

I have a late 2009 Macbook Air and apperantly it's not supported.

Had I not seen that support list article, I would have still believed the AirDrop icon would eventually show up in my Finder when I finally had someone with Lion who I could share things with over AirDrop.

AirDrop is prominently displayed as a supports--by-defeault-all-machines-on-Lion feature on the Apple website.

I guess not. This was one of the things I upgraded for. So much for that AirDrop feature on Lion that only works in the latest Macs. Nice way going, Apple.

July 21 2011 at 8:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Sbob

There's a Mac app that is similar but works across wired networks as well. It's called Dropcopy. I thought AirDrop would replace Dropycopy for me, but having to have the Airdrop screen open at both ends is a fail for me. Dropcopy just works. Plus you can send quick little messages through Dropcopy as well: "Time for bed kids!"

Airdrop will be great when I need to send a file from my laptop to another laptop when I'm away from home. At home though I'll stick to Dropcopy.

July 21 2011 at 5:04 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
InfoWorkshop

I would guess that the networking circumstances are complicated and there are tradeoffs.

Airdrop only works between two Macs that have dual-band WiFi networking hardware in them so that it can create a zero-configuration connection between them that "just works" in every case without any user interaction.  In this situation, only the hardware between the Macs is involved, and the WiFi-band radio connection is between them exclusively.  

This choice may have been made to avoid headaches perhaps because of all the different combinations and permutations of network connections, and whether or not it's your home WiFi or work WiFi or Starbuck's WiFi.  Starbucks might not appreciate you AirDropping a movie from one machine to another over it's WiFi.

Furthermore, Apple may have made a decision to ease into this and not deliver too hard a punch to, say, DropBox.  It may also have implications with iCloud.  Maybe they just need more time getting zero-configuration to work reliably over other kinds of network situations.

The takeaway is that even though it's simple on the surface, the underlying issues may be a rat's nest, and just keeping it exclusively between two macs with dual-band hardware in WiFi range kept it simple.

This is similar to why people don't understand why Apple would never introduce and Apple-branded TV. When you look into the details, it's actually a hornet's nest even worse than AppleTV's challenges.   Making things dead-simple is sometimes out of your control.

July 21 2011 at 4:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.