I'm unable to share my Ethernet connection with my iPhone over USB. I tried both the 'Internet Sharing' and the 'Content Caching' methods. I can see the iPhone in Finder but the iPhone does not connect to the internet. I can also see and select 'iPhone USB' inside 'Internet Sharing' when the iPhone is connected.
macOS: 10.15.7
iOS: 14.1
iPhone X, iOS 13
You misunderstand what that does. It shares the phone's internet connection to your computer via USB. Not the other way round.
Who told you that should work?
That's not a normal thing to do.
If your iMac has a wired network connection, you can share that connection using WiFi from your Mac.
If it has a wireless connection, there is no reason to share the connection from the Mac as you can just connect directly to the same WiFi network your Mac does.
I'm trying to do the opposite. I need to share the Ethernet connection from my iMac to my iPhone through the iPhone USB cable (not the other way around). Internet Sharing does work through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but not the iPhone USB cable. The Mac is already trusted and the iPhone shows up in Finder, but the iPhone does not get internet connectivity through the USB cable.
For my mission critical application I need to use a wired connection, and 'iPhone USB' is one of the options under Internet Sharing:
Content Caching should also allow internet sharing over USB but doesn't work either:
It does not. As the it says on the screen capture: Content Caching "Shares the computer's internet connection and cached content with the iOS devices connected using USB"
Furthermore, Internet Sharing does successfully share the computer's internet access with the iPhone when I select Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, it's just the iPhone USB option that doesn't work.
REF: Share the internet connection on Mac with other network users
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/share-internet-connection-mac-network-users-mchlp1540/mac
Hello Orangen,
Thank you for reaching out in Apple Support Communities. We understand you're unable to share the internet connection from an iPhone to your Mac with a USB connection. We'll be happy to help.
By any chance, did you see a notification on your iPhone that said, "Trust This Computer?" If not, here's an article with the proper steps: About the 'Trust This Computer' alert on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch
Then, you can follow the section in this article that says, "Connect a Mac or PC with USB": Share your internet connection from iPhone
Please let us know if that helps.
Kind regards.
Internet Sharing to iPhone over USB not working
