How To Tether Your MacBook Pro to Your iPad or iPhone Wireless to Connect to the Internet via USB
I’ve got a great home office with fiber, and my home is both wired and has an Eero mesh network. It’s a beautiful setup, but today I found myself in trouble. For the first time ever, my fiber provider was having an outage. After confirming with the company that they were down, I had to get some work done but I didn’t want to have to work via my iPhone or iPad.
I had read that iOS supported tethering, so I plugged my USB-C cord from my MacBook Pro to my iPad… and nothing. I read a few articles online on how to configure this, but it wasn’t very helpful at all. I eventually figured out that the issue was that my MacBook Pro continued to try to utilize my ethernet and Wi-Fi since my internal network was still active despite no internet connection.
Here’s how I fixed it:
iPad (iOS) Personal HotSpot Settings
- On my iPad Personal Hotspot Settings, I enabled Maximize Compatibility, which allows a USB network connection.
- I connected the USB-C cable between my MacBook Pro and my iPad.
MacBook Pro (macOS) Network Settings
- I turned off my Wi-Fi on my Mac so that it was disconnected from my network.
- Because I also had an ethernet connection, in macOS Network Settings, I had to disable the USB 10/100/1000 LAN attached via my docking station by clicking the Make Inactive button.
- Return to the network devices and select iPad USB. Click Details… and turn off Disable unless needed.
- This will leave you with one network connection (green) via your iPad USB network. As long as your iPad is connected to the Internet via mobile, you’re good to go!
And, of course, don’t forget that you’re going to have to make those devices active once your Internet connection is back up!
