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One of the Lion features I would really like to use is AirDrop. It would make transferring files so much faster than using a flash drive. Unfortunately, my Mac is a 2007 Black MacBook, and AirDrop is not supported on this hardware.

Is there a way to enable AirDrop on my MacBook? Are there any hacks or Terminal tricks to do this?

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  • Try dropbox, same features, easier to use, more versatile, plus online storage.
    – abc905
    Mar 7, 2012 at 13:12
  • Dropbox is a very different set of features. It may be a good alternative in some cases if you can't use Airdrop, but I would not want to transfer a large file between Macs by uploading it through my ISP and downloading it again.
    – Ken
    Jul 25, 2012 at 18:03

1 Answer 1

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Hackers have found that Airdrop can be enabled on any Mac running OS X Lion, and will work over ethernet as well. It can be enabled with a shell command.
(source: osxdaily)

Copy and paste the command into the terminal of all macs that are supposed to communicate with other hacked macs.
This will enable AirDrop over both Wi-Fi and wired Ethernet connections:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1; killall Finder;

To disable this feature use:

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 0; killall Finder;

Note

This does not enable the feature on your Airport card. The AirDrop feature is originally not there because the Airport card does not support it (simultaneous wifi and ad hoc networking). This hack enables AirDrop to run over whatever other network connection you have. Therefore, in order for two Macs to communciate this way both must apply the hack.

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  • Does this change remain constant through OS updates or will I have to reapply it each time the minor version changes?
    – Synesthetic Symphony
    Jan 21, 2012 at 20:05
  • @SynestheticSymphony I believe no, but I have not yet had to update my OS to a newer version (10.7.2) to confirm this. It would probably also depend on the type of update itself.
    – gentmatt
    Jan 22, 2012 at 8:09
  • Is this really a hack? It's just a preference change. (It's still useful, just quibbling with terminology. (: )
    – SilverWolf
    Dec 19, 2017 at 22:16

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