The various methods for severing the connection between an iPhone and a Mac, including Bluetooth, AirDrop, iCloud, and more, are listed below.
iOS and macOS are tightly integrated to work in sync with each other. As a result, switching between an iPhone and a Mac or vice versa is seamless, allowing you to easily complete tasks like note-taking, file management, messaging, and more. This seamless experience is fantastic from the standpoint of convenience and productivity. What happens, though, if you want to unplug your iPhone from your Mac?
I’ll walk you through the various approaches to removing your iPhone from your Mac. Let’s go!
Remove Your Mac From Apple ID
Remove your Mac from your Apple ID if you’re looking for an easy way to stop using your Mac and iPhone together. The two devices will continue to be in sync as long as they are both paired with the same Apple ID.
Remove Your Mac From Apple ID
- On your iPhone or iPad, head over to the Settings app -> your profile.
- Now, tap your Mac. Now, tap Remove from Account and confirm.
Remove Your iPhone From Apple ID
- On your Mac, navigate to System Preferences app -> Apple ID.
- Now, select your iPhone in the sidebar and hit Remove from Account.
Unpair Your Mac/iPhone Via Bluetooth
For Continuity to operate between your devices, such as an iPhone and a Mac, Bluetooth is essential. Therefore, disabling Bluetooth will instantly stop your devices from syncing and will allow you to disconnect your iPhone from your Mac.
- Turn Off Bluetooth on Your iPhone/iPad: On your iPhone, navigate to the Settings app -> Bluetooth and then turn off the toggle. If your Mac appears under the My Devices section, tap the info “i” button next to it and hit Forget This Device.
- Turn Off Bluetooth on Mac: Click on the Bluetooth menu at the upper-right corner of the screen and then turn off the toggle for Bluetooth.
Recall that disabling Bluetooth will also prevent your Apple Watch, Bluetooth-enabled devices, and AirPods from pairing and syncing with your iPhone. Further Reading: Airpods Not Connecting To Macbook: 13 Solutions
Disable Phone Calls On Mac
Calls can be made and received directly from an iPhone on a Mac thanks to Apple. Even though this works when your iPhone and Mac both use the same Apple ID, you can disable this feature on a per-device basis if you don’t want to detach either of these devices from your Apple account as in method #1.
- To disable phone calls from reaching your Mac, open the Settings app and select Phone.
- Inside Phone, tap on Calls on Other Devices.
- On the next screen, turn off the toggle adjacent to your Mac under “Allow Calls On” to disable the call forwarding feature on the selected device. On other devices on this list that you may have enabled, you might still be able to make and receive phone calls.
- If you want your calls to only be answerable on your iPhone, you can disable the Allow Calls on Other Devices toggle at the top.
Turn Off Text Message Forwarding To Your Mac
Users can set up the Messages app on their Macs to receive all SMS and iMessages sent from their iPhones directly on the Mac. This is possible thanks to Apple. By turning off the Text Message Forwarding feature on your iPhone, you can disconnect your Mac and stop it from receiving SMS messages.
- To disable Text Message Forwarding, open the Settings app on your iPhone and select Messages.
- Inside Messages, scroll down and tap on Text Message Forwarding.
- Turn the toggle next to your Mac off on this screen.
- The delivery of SMS messages to your iPhone should no longer be sent to your Mac as a result.
Enable Notes To Save Locally On iPhone
All the notes you create on the Mac also get copied over to the iPhone, and vice versa, if you use the same Apple account on your iPhone and Mac and have enabled iCloud for all the apps and services on your device. You must save your iPhone notes locally on iOS if you want to keep them on your iPhone and not sync them to your Mac.
- To disable notes syncing over to the Mac, open the Settings app and select Notes.
- Inside Notes, turn on the “On My iPhone” Account toggle.
This should guarantee that all notes you make on your iPhone remain there and aren’t accessible from any other device, including your Mac.
Disable Handoff On Ios
Apple offers a Handoff feature to let users multitask with their devices. As the name of the feature implies, handoff enables you to begin a task on your iPhone and continue it on your Mac, and vice versa. Nevertheless, you can turn off Handoff on iOS if you don’t like it and don’t want your Mac to show content or an ongoing task from your iPhone.

- To turn off the Handoff feature on your iPhone, open the Settings app and select General.
- Inside General, tap on AirPlay & Handoff.
- On the next screen, turn off the Handoff toggle.
This iPhone will no longer display Handoff banners, and you will no longer be able to access the Handoff icon on your Mac from this specific iPhone.
Disconnect Airdrop
Your iPhone and Mac can send files to each other via AirDrop using short-range wireless communication. To prevent your Mac or iPhone from detecting each other, you would need to turn off AirDrop on both devices.
Turn Off Airdrop On Mac
To prevent your iPhone from detecting your Mac, simply head to Finder → click AirDrop in the sidebar → click the drop-down menu beside Allow me to be discovered by: → select No One.
Turn Off Airdrop On iPhone
You can go to Settings → General → AirDrop → select Receiving Off to prevent your iPhone from being shown as an The Mac location for AirDrop. But doing so also makes it difficult for others to find you.
Disable Handoff
The Apple ecosystem’s seamless integration is best demonstrated by continuity. A task can be started on one Apple device and continued on other thanks to this feature.
- Turn off Handoff on iPhone: You can disable Handoff on iPhone by going to Settings → General → AirPlay & Handoff → toggle off Handoff.
- Turn off Handoff on Mac: Head to Apple menu → System Preferences → click General → deselect Allow Handoff between this Mac and your iCloud devices at the bottom.
Stop iCloud Syncing
Your device is added to your iCloud as soon as you use the same Apple ID for all of your devices. Everything on all of your devices is automatically synced as a result.
If you want your Mac to stop syncing data and other features to your other Apple devices:
- Go to Apple menu → System Preferences.
- Click Apple ID → select iCloud on the sidebar.
- Uncheck any options or services, such as Contacts, Reminders, and Mail, that you do not want your Mac to sync with your iCloud.
Similarly to that, you can stop your iPhone from syncing data with the gadgets linked to your Apple ID. Just do the following:
- Go to Settings → tap your name → select iCloud.
- Toggle off the services you want to disable syncing.
Keep Your Notes On iPhone
In addition to syncing emails and calendars, iCloud also allows you to sync notes between your iPhone and Mac, which is, to be honest, pretty useful—especially if you use Notes for saving images, clipping articles, working with others, etc.
You can turn off syncing and save your notes locally on your iPhone if you don’t want them to sync with your Mac’s Notes application. Go to Settings → Notes → toggle on On My iPhone Account.
Disconnect Your Mac From Your iPhone‘s Personal Hotspot
If you’ve ever used your iPhone’s personal hotspot on your Mac, the Mac will automatically connect to it or prompt you to join it whenever it detects it. But bother not, you can turn off “Ask to join in” to stop your preventing Mac from using the personal hotspot on your iPhone.
Stop Your Mac From Automatically Joining Your iPhone‘s Personal Hotspot
- Click on the Wi-Fi menu at the upper-right corner of the screen and choose Network Preferences in the menu.
- Now, uncheck the box to the left of Ask to join Personal Hotspots.
- Alternately, open System Preferences -> Network -> Wi-Fi and then deselect To join Personal Hotspots, ask to join.
Disable Personal Hotspot On Your iPhone
- Head over to the Settings app on your iPhone. After that, choose Personal Hotspot and then turn off the toggle next to Allow Others to Join.
Disconnect The Usb Cable Connecting To iPhone
To physically separate both devices from the connecting cable is arguably the easiest way to disconnect an iPhone from a Mac. Before unplugging the two devices, you must eject your iPhone from the Mac if you used a USB-to-Lightning cable to connect it to the computer.
To eject your iPhone from the Mac, open the Finder app on macOS and locate your iPhone from the left sidebar under “Locations”.
To remove the iPhone, hover over your iPhone and click on the Eject icon (marked with a horizontal line and an up arrow above it).
Your iPhone will vanish from this Finder sidebar after being successfully ejected.
You can now completely disconnect the two devices by removing the cable that connects them.