JUNE 2019 MACWORLD 133device doesn’t appear, try turning
Bluetooth off and back on with both
devices. That often clears the state. If that
fails, switch the receiving device briefly to
Everyone so you can send the file or item,
then switch it back to your standard default.
macOS’s original AirDrop flavor isn’t
compatible with the later version
supported by iOS and macOS. In macOS,
you can click “Don’t see who you’re
looking for” and then click Search for an
Older Mac to find Macs several releases
back that are reachable via AirDrop.
Parental control over AirDrop
While macOS has granular parental
controls for a lot of elements of the
operating system, AirDrop isn’t one of
them. However, iOS 12 added AirDrop as
something you can manage via Screen
Time, and some parents (including your
correspondent) uses Screen Time with a
passcode to mediate access for their child.
In iOS 12, open Settings → Screen Time
→ Content & Privacy Restrictions, tap the
switch to turn it on, then tap Allowed Apps.
You can tap AirDrop to disable it.HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT
AND FIX STRANGE WEBSITE
ERRORS WITH MACOS SAFARI
Modern websites have a legitimate reason
to push a lot of data to your browser that it
retains for future sessions. This can vary from
a browser “cookie” that maintains a session
for a short period of time to other identifiers
and even databases that are pulled up, but
only when you visit the site again.
This can snowball into “cruft,” a catchall
term for digital code you don’t want. In
particular, I see a problem with it in Safari,
and have a way to troubleshoot and fix it.
You’ll realize something is amiss is when
you visit a website you use routinely and
receive an odd error. You try closing
windows, quitting the browser, even
restarting your Mac, and the problem
persists. My credit-union site, for instance,
will throw up a server error that says my
headers are too long and malformed. Thank
you very much, but my headers are just fine!
Rather, there’s an interaction between
data stored on behalf of the credit union
by its servers and Safari sending that dataYou can use Screen Time to block AirDrop
entirely on an iOS device.