How to Turn Off AirDrop on an iPhone, iPad or Mac, and Keep It Off

Most people looking for this have a reason. A stranger on a train has pushed something unwanted onto their screen, or a child's iPad keeps receiving things from classmates, or they simply do not want a phone announcing itself to every device in the room. AirDrop can be switched off in about five seconds, and it can also be locked off so nobody can switch it back. Here is every way to do it.

Control Centre is the fastest way to turn off AirDrop on an iPhone

This is the one to reach for when something has just arrived that you did not want. Four taps, and nothing else on the phone changes:

1. Swipe down from the top-right corner of the screen. On an iPhone with a Home button, swipe up from the bottom edge instead.
2. Press and hold the card in the top left, the one holding Aeroplane Mode, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
3. Tap the AirDrop icon that appears once the card expands.
4. Choose Receiving Off.

A few things about that sequence are worth knowing before you rely on it.

• Receiving Off is the only one of the three AirDrop settings that genuinely turns AirDrop off. Contacts Only and Everyone both leave the phone listening for incoming files. Only Receiving Off refuses all of them.
• The AirDrop control is hidden inside the connectivity card in Control Centre rather than sitting on the main grid. A normal tap on that card does nothing useful, which is why so many people conclude the setting is not there. You have to press and hold to expand it.
• Choosing Receiving Off in Control Centre takes effect straight away and stays that way until you change it. It is a setting, not a temporary mute, so it survives locking the phone and restarting it.
• An iPad turns AirDrop off through exactly the same expanded Control Centre card as an iPhone. Swipe down from the top-right corner, press and hold the same group of icons, and pick Receiving Off.
• An iPhone set to Receiving Off can still send an AirDrop to somebody else. The setting only governs what is allowed to arrive. Starting a share yourself opens the connection for that one transfer, so switching AirDrop off costs you nothing when you are the one sending.

Camera to Clipboard moves a phone photo with AirDrop switched off

Switching AirDrop off is the right answer to being pestered, and it is honest to say it solves nothing about actually getting a photo off your phone. If you turned it off because it was unreliable rather than because of strangers, or because the computer you need the photo on is not an Apple one, that is a different problem with a different tool.

• Camera to Clipboard sends a phone photo to a computer over your own Wi-Fi and does not use AirDrop at all. Leaving AirDrop on Receiving Off, or removing it in Screen Time, changes nothing about whether it works.
• A photo sent with Camera to Clipboard lands on the computer's clipboard rather than in a downloads folder. Press Ctrl + V or Cmd + V in whatever you are working in and it is there, with no file to hunt for afterwards.
• Camera to Clipboard works from an iPhone or an Android phone to a Windows PC or a Mac, which AirDrop has never done. AirDrop is Apple to Apple only, which is why AirDrop for Windows and AirDrop for Android are searches at all.
• Camera to Clipboard sends the photo straight between the two devices, with nothing uploaded to a cloud service. The picture never leaves your network, so it works on a hotspot or on a network with no internet.
• Camera to Clipboard sends one photo or a whole batch in a single go, freshly taken or picked from the camera roll. Videos and scanned documents travel the same way.

1. Install Camera to Clipboard on the phone and the desktop app on the computer.
2. Pair once by scanning a QR code, which takes about ten seconds.
3. Take or pick a photo on the phone and send it.
4. Press Ctrl + V or Cmd + V on the computer.

Free to download and try on both ends.

Settings > General > AirDrop names all three choices in plain words

Control Centre is quicker, but the Settings screen is the one to open when you want to see what you are picking between, or when you are setting up a device for somebody else and want to be certain it took.

• Settings > General > AirDrop is the same screen on an iPhone and an iPad, and it lists all three receiving choices with a tick against the active one. Reading a tick is more reliable than reading a Control Centre icon, which only shows you a symbol.
• Choosing Receiving Off in Settings and choosing it in Control Centre change the same single setting on the phone. There is no separate Settings-only switch and no priority between the two, so use whichever you have open.
• A Mac has no Settings > General > AirDrop screen, and its equivalent is System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff. The Mac steps are further down this page.
• Turning AirDrop off in Settings does not sign you out of iCloud or alter any other sharing feature. Nothing else on the phone moves, and no app loses access to anything.

Contacts Only blocks strangers and Receiving Off blocks everyone

Deciding between the three settings is easier once you know exactly what each one lets through, because for most people the strictest option is not actually the one they want.

• Receiving Off refuses every incoming AirDrop, including files from your own family and your own other devices. Nothing reaches the phone and nothing prompts you, which is exactly right in public and mildly annoying at home.
• Contacts Only accepts an AirDrop only from somebody already saved in your contacts, which is enough to stop every stranger. A person on a train cannot be in your contacts, so they cannot reach you, and your friends still can.
• Contacts Only needs you signed in to iCloud, and needs the sender's Apple ID email address or phone number saved in their contact card. That is why a friend who is genuinely in your contacts sometimes still fails to appear, and it is a missing detail on the card rather than a fault.
• Everyone for 10 Minutes is the only AirDrop setting that lets an unknown person nearby send you a file. If you have been receiving unwanted photos, this is the setting your phone was on.
• The preview thumbnail is what makes an unwanted AirDrop harmful, because you see the image in the prompt before you have accepted anything. Declining does not help, since the picture has already been rendered on your screen. Blocking the sender is not possible either, because AirDrop has no accounts to block.
• Sending an unsolicited explicit image, including by AirDrop, is a criminal offence in England and Wales under the Online Safety Act 2023. Several other countries and US states have passed comparable laws. Reporting it to transport staff or the police is a real option, not a theoretical one.

Everyone reverts to Contacts Only on its own after 10 minutes

Older advice about AirDrop assumes a phone can sit on Everyone forever, and that is no longer true. Apple changed it, and the change is the reason this problem is smaller than it used to be.

• Apple removed the permanent Everyone option from AirDrop and replaced it with Everyone for 10 Minutes. The change shipped in iOS 16.2 at the end of 2022, a few weeks after it appeared on iPhones sold in mainland China.
• Apple's stated reason for putting a timer on AirDrop's Everyone setting was to cut down unwanted file sharing. The permanent version was what made unsolicited sending easy, and most phones left on it had simply been forgotten about years earlier.
• An iPhone left on Everyone for 10 Minutes returns to Contacts Only by itself, with no notification and no action from you. A phone can no longer sit open to strangers for months because somebody tapped the wrong option once.
• The 10-minute AirDrop timer restarts from scratch every time you choose Everyone for 10 Minutes again. It is not a daily allowance and there is no limit on how often you can pick it.
• Choosing Everyone for 10 Minutes deliberately is the sensible way to accept one file from a colleague who is not in your contacts. Take the file, then let the timer put the phone back to Contacts Only on its own.

Finder and Control Centre both turn AirDrop off on a Mac

A Mac has the same three levels as an iPhone but names the strictest one differently, which is the main reason people cannot find it. There are three places to set it and they all change the same thing.

• No One is the Mac's name for the setting an iPhone calls Receiving Off. Looking for the words "Receiving Off" on a Mac is a dead end, and that naming difference is the whole confusion.
• The Mac AirDrop setting sits at the bottom of the Finder AirDrop window, beside "Allow me to be discovered by". Open Finder, click AirDrop in the sidebar, and set that menu to No One.
• Control Centre in the Mac menu bar switches AirDrop off without opening Finder at all. Click the Control Centre icon, then click the AirDrop button to switch it off, or click its label to pick between No One, Contacts Only and Everyone.
• System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff holds the same Mac AirDrop choice as Finder and Control Centre do. Three doors, one setting behind them, so it does not matter which you use.
• A Mac set to No One can still send an AirDrop, exactly as an iPhone set to Receiving Off can. Nothing about switching it off stops you sharing a file to somebody who has theirs on.

Screen Time locks AirDrop off so a child cannot turn it back on

Switching AirDrop off in Control Centre lasts exactly as long as it takes a child to switch it on again. This is the version that holds, and it is the answer for a school iPad:

1. On the child's device, open Settings > Screen Time.
2. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions and turn restrictions on.
3. Tap Allowed Apps, which newer iOS versions call Allowed Apps & Features.
4. Switch AirDrop off.

Four things follow from doing it this way rather than from Control Centre.

• Turning AirDrop off through Screen Time removes it from Control Centre and from the Settings app entirely. There is no greyed-out switch left over and nothing to tap, so the feature is not just off but gone.
• A Screen Time passcode has to be different from the device unlock code or the AirDrop restriction is worthless. A child who watched you unlock the phone can otherwise undo the whole thing in fifteen seconds.
• Screen Time restrictions on a child's iPhone or iPad can be set from a parent's phone through Family Sharing. You do not need the device in your hand, which matters once it leaves the house.
• Switching AirDrop off in Screen Time blocks sending as well as receiving. AirDrop disappears from the share sheet too, so a child cannot send photos to classmates either. That is usually the point, but it is worth knowing before you set it.

NameDrop has its own switch on the iPhone AirDrop settings screen

A share of the people who go looking for the AirDrop switch are really after this one, because it lives on the same screen and the warnings that circulate about it rarely name it correctly.

• NameDrop swaps contact cards between two iPhones held close together, and it is switched on by default. Apple added it in iOS 17, and it is the feature behind every warning about phones exchanging details by touching.
• Settings > General > AirDrop > Bringing Devices Together is the toggle that turns NameDrop off. It sits underneath the three receiving choices on the same screen, which is why it is easy to walk past.
• NameDrop only triggers when both iPhones are unlocked and almost touching, and either person can cancel it. A phone in a pocket or on a table cannot be made to hand over a contact card, so the warnings overstate it considerably.
• NameDrop shares a contact card and never shares photos, files or anything else on the phone. It is a different feature from AirDrop file sharing despite sharing a settings screen with it.

Turning AirDrop off leaves Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Handoff working

People hesitate over this switch because AirDrop clearly uses the radios, and switching it off sounds like it might take something else down with it. It does not, and it helps to know why.

• AirDrop finds nearby devices over Bluetooth and then moves the file over a direct Wi-Fi link between the two devices. That link is made between the phone and the computer themselves, so no router and no internet connection is involved in the transfer.
• Turning AirDrop off leaves Bluetooth switched on, so headphones, a watch and a car stereo all keep working. AirDrop is one user of Bluetooth among many, and switching it off does not touch the radio.
• Turning AirDrop off leaves Wi-Fi switched on, so nothing about your internet connection changes. Web pages, streaming and downloads are all unaffected.
• Turning AirDrop off does not affect Handoff, Universal Clipboard or AirPlay. Those are separate features with their own switches, even though they belong to the same Continuity family and use the same radios.
• Turning AirDrop off does not stop you sending files by iMessage, Mail or any app. The only thing that stops is AirDrop's own device-to-device sharing.

Set AirDrop to Contacts Only daily and Receiving Off in a crowd

Every setting on this page has a situation it is right for, so rather than picking one and leaving it forever, match it to where you are. Find yours below.

• Contacts Only is the AirDrop setting to leave an iPhone on from one day to the next. No stranger can reach you, your friends and your own devices still can, and you never have to remember to change anything.
• Receiving Off is the AirDrop setting for a crowded train, a festival, a lecture theatre or any packed public place. It refuses everything, so nothing can appear on your screen no matter who is standing next to you.
• Screen Time is the way to turn AirDrop off on a child's iPhone or iPad so that it stays off. Control Centre lasts until the child opens Control Centre, and Screen Time removes the feature altogether.
• Everyone for 10 Minutes is worth choosing on purpose for a single file from somebody who is not in your contacts. The timer puts the phone back to Contacts Only without you having to remember.
• No One is the Mac setting that matches Receiving Off on an iPhone, and Finder is the quickest place to set it. Control Centre in the menu bar does the same job in one fewer click if Finder is not already open.
• Camera to Clipboard is the tool for moving a phone photo to a computer once AirDrop is switched off or was never an option. It runs over your own Wi-Fi and reaches a Windows PC as easily as a Mac.

Common questions about turning AirDrop off

How do I turn off AirDrop on my iPhone?
Open Control Centre, press and hold the card in the top left that holds Aeroplane Mode and Wi-Fi, tap AirDrop and choose Receiving Off. The same choice sits in Settings > General > AirDrop. Receiving Off refuses every incoming AirDrop and stays off until you change it, and you can still send an AirDrop to somebody else while it is set.

How do I stop strangers sending me AirDrop photos in public?
Set AirDrop to Contacts Only, or to Receiving Off if you want nothing at all. Everyone for 10 Minutes is the only setting a stranger nearby can use to reach your phone, and it now expires by itself after 10 minutes and drops back to Contacts Only, so a phone can no longer sit open to strangers for weeks.

Can I stop my child turning AirDrop back on?
Yes. Open Settings > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions, turn restrictions on, tap Allowed Apps, and switch AirDrop off. AirDrop then disappears from Control Centre and from the Settings app, so there is nothing left to switch back on. Set a Screen Time passcode that is different from the device unlock code, or the child can simply undo it.

Does turning off AirDrop turn off Wi-Fi or Bluetooth?
No. AirDrop finds nearby devices over Bluetooth and then moves the file over a direct Wi-Fi link, but turning AirDrop off leaves both radios running for everything else. Headphones, watches, car stereos and your internet connection are untouched, and Handoff, Universal Clipboard and AirPlay keep working.