Photos.app is not syncing when using hotspot. How to treat hotspot as a regular Wi-Fi on macOS?

Recently I started use hotspot as my home internet. I have unlimited data and high speeds 160/40 Mbps. Everything works well except Photos.app. It just doesn't sync even a single photo.

I contacted Apple support, but it's just a big facepalm. They asked me to test this problem with other iPhones and MacBooks. I tested with over 5 devices, as I expected the result was the same. I wrote them and provided steps to reproduce the problem, but their answer was:

Thank you for the Response. Since the issue is happening on more than 1 iPhone, as I discussed when we spoke on the phone the first time, Its due to the computer needing a stronger connection other than hotspot. There is no need move forward with troubleshooting at this point due to the same thing happening on all the Apple products you have tried. As discussed, we would have continued troubleshooting only if the issue didn’t persist on another Apple product, because then it would have shown that its device specific and this it is not because its all the Apple products you have tried. Thank you for understanding.

So that's why I am looking for the answer on how to treat hotspot as a regular Wi-Fi on macOS.

macOS 10.14.5; iOS 12.3


So, finally I got the workaround to solve this issue.

You need to setup a VPN connection for that. Probably you can use any VPN connection, but I used OpenVPN and used Viscosity as a client.

You can install OpenVPN either locally or using remote server using this bash script.

After connecting to the VPN it assumes that it connected to the real internet not a Wi-Fi hotspot. I assume that it's because it cannot access iPhone router IP address. So theoretically blocking iPhone's local network could work as well.


In the meantime I found an other solution for this problem so it can be an option to disconnect the iCloud account from the phone. This way the iPhone is not associated with the Mac used by the same iCloud login and also the personal hotspot could work separately.

Anyway this option is really circumstantial and inconvenient so the detailed vpn solution would be much better for me.

Unfortunately I haven't enough reputation to add a comment to your previous respond but every plus instruction is welcomed from my side and I also ask the admins to not delete this answer or make from this block a comment manually because I don't have any other option to contact with Nick Walker in connection with this issue.