AirDrop on Older Macs

Update: This will only work over Ethernet on older Macs, not wifi.

If you have a newer Mac you might have seen something in your Finder's sidebar called AirDrop. You may have never used it but it's a pretty cool little addition. What it allows you to do it transfer files from one Mac to another simply by dropping files into a Finder window, as long as the recipient has AirDrop open on their machine too. But, as a I mentioned, it only works on newer Macs...until now. This tip I found over at Cult of Macand it allows you to use AirDrop on previously unsupported Macs.

My dilemma sometimes is that I want to transfer a large file from my laptop to my Mac Mini in the basement but it's too big to email or I can't find my flash drive. But downstairs my Mini isn't as up-to-date as my laptop and didn't have AirDrop. But if you get into Terminal (it's easy, don't worry) and cut and paste the little piece of text below, you can enable AirDrop on an older machine.

Here's how to do it:

1. On the older machine open Terminal (it's in your Applications > Utilities)

2. Copy and paste the text below into Terminal and press Enter

defaults write com.apple.NetworkBrowser BrowseAllInterfaces 1

3. Close Terminal and either restart your computer or just the Finder (Force Quit the Finder)

4. Now when you open a Finder window you should see AirDrop on the list of available options. Sweet.