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Every time that I look this up, all the websites or articles say the answer is switching the settings to "When last connected to this Mac". I don't want the AirPods to ever automatically connect to my Mac, even when it was the last device it was connected to. Does anyone have any ideas for this?
AirPods (3rd generation)
I have this same issue, selecting 'when last connected to this Mac' does NOT work and I am frankly SO sick and tired of Apple deciding what is 'convenient' for me and NOT leaving room for my preference to override that I am, after switching to Mac three years ago, I am SO ready to sell each and every Apple device I own and go back to when I and I ALONE had control over my computer, my phone, my car stereo, my music library, my headphones. This is the single BIGGEST achille's heel of the entire Apple ecosystem - the arrogant, presumptuousness to leave me out of the decisions as to how and when I can use the devices I own..ESPECIALLY given the premium you pay for them. After purging my iPhone of my ENTIRE Apple Music library because Apple didn't have the sense, or regard, to put into place an option to NOT have it automatically start playing from my library EVERY time the phone connects to the car...every time I START the car, every time I END a phone call, every time I take off my Airpods...to the point of absurdity. It's been a problem for YEARS and they've done NOTHING, just as they will, I have NO doubt, do NOTHING to fix THIS ridiculous failure.
I've had enough - I simply didn't have these kinds of ridiculous issues when I used a PC and an Android phone and I will be more than happy to go back to life without them.
Here's what I did:
That should be it. I've had that working for me beautifully. That being said, it would have been nice for the settings (not just connection) of the airpods to 'sync' but we're not in a perfect world are we?
As I said in my last post it's working perfectly for me. I have B/T set as follows on my iPhone as follows:
and on my iMac:
If both are set as shown in the screenshots and the last time you used the AirPods was with the iPhone it will always connect to the iPhone and give not notification on the Mac.
Since it works for most of us here it's not a system wide bug or issue.
Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?
Download and run Etrecheck.
Copy the report
and use the Additional Text button to paste the report in your reply.
Then we can examine the report and see if we can determine the cause of the problem.
It seems that you haven't read the description of the post, only the title. What I wanted to achieve was being able to use my AirPods on my Mac sometimes, while stopping them from ever automatically connecting. The solution that Old Toad provides only solves the issue if I never wanted to use the AirPods on the Mac. This would be easy for Apple to solve by adding "never" as an option for automatically connecting.
Johnthewineguy wrote:
Can there be a setting of [never connect to this device]?
I'm not a programmer so I can't answer that. You can, however, let Apple know what you'd like to see here:
I want to have bluetooth turned on with my MacBook, my kid's, my wife's. All 5 family/work iPads; all our AirPods, our Beats headphones...
Are you sharing an Apple ID? If so, this is only one of many problems you'll have. Yes, you can sometimes work around them but those workarounds tend to break with iOS updates. And Apple is quite definite that they don't support sharing of Apple IDs. They don't prohibit it but nor do they go out of their way to make it any easier.
Mr. Dakota Brower wrote:
Every time that I look this up, all the websites or articles say the answer is switching the settings to "When last connected to this Mac". I don't want the AirPods to ever automatically connect to my Mac, even when it was the last device it was connected to. Does anyone have any ideas for this?
I had a similar issue with AirPods in that whenever I put them on to list4d to audiobooks on my iPhone I would get a notification in the upper right hand corner of my iMac's screen that said my AirPods were detected nearby and there was a button to connect.
I then following the suggest ion to check the "When last connected to this Mac" and the next time I put them on I didn't get that notification. So it works.
Be sure you have Automatically set on the device you want to use the AirPods with.
I have my iMac and iPhone set up as follows:
iPhone: Automatically
iMac: When last connected to this Mac
After the first time I connected the AirPods to my iPhone I've never have a problem with them connecting to the iMac.
Thank you Eric. It's unfortunate that there is no way to fully stop them from automatically connecting. Do you know if there's a way to check the battery level of the AirPods without opening the case and triggering them to connect?
It seems that Old Toad provided a perfect solution, but somehow it has been ignored.
In case you have not noticed: set it to Automatic on the phone, and to "when last connected to" on the mac, and it always prefer the phone over the mac.
Can there be a setting of [never connect to this device]?
I want to have bluetooth turned on with my MacBook, my kid's, my wife's. All 5 family/work iPads; all our AirPods, our Beats headphones... They all try to steal my AirPods, his Beats, even though I've gone through all steps to keep them on kid's iPad, my phone, my wife's phone. We use bluetooth for other devices and file sharing. The only thing is "Hey, Kid! Can you turn off bluetooth?!"
Even though we share, can there be a setting of [only connect to this device]?
Thank you!
Absolute GOLD!!! Thank you!
Agree 100%
Since many on this thread think it is an issue, not sure why you think it’s not. And I can’t see how VPN or antivirus software would have any relevance to this problem.
If you set it up like I did and want to use it on your Mac occasionally then you can but you must reset it back to your iPhone when done so it connects to the iPhone automatically the next time.
How to FULLY stop AirPods from automatically connecting to Mac.
