How to Share Your Wi-Fi Password From an iPhone - With an iPhone, an Android Phone or a Room Full of Guests

Which Way to Share Your Wi-Fi From an iPhone

Choose by who is receiving the password. Another Apple device whose owner is in your Contacts takes Apple's Share Password prompt; an Android phone, a stranger or several people at once take a QR code from the Passwords app; a network that guests join every day takes a printed Wi-Fi QR code. Typing the password is the fallback that always works.

How Do I Share a Wi-Fi Password From One iPhone to Another?

Keep your iPhone unlocked and connected to the network, have the other person tap the same network in Settings > Wi-Fi on their iPhone, iPad or Mac, and tap Share Password when the prompt slides up on your screen, then Done. Their device joins without anyone typing. The whole exchange takes about ten seconds once the conditions below are met.

Wi-Fi password sharing is an Apple feature that sends a saved network password from an unlocked iPhone, iPad or Mac to a nearby Apple device trying to join that network. The password travels directly between the two devices; the person receiving it never sees it on screen, though it is saved on their device like any network they join.

1. Check the Contacts on Both Phones. Each person needs the other's Apple Account email address or phone number saved in Contacts. This is the condition most people miss.
2. Turn On Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Turn Off Personal Hotspot. On both devices. Bluetooth carries the request; Personal Hotspot on either device blocks the prompt.
3. Unlock Your iPhone and Stay on the Network. The sharing iPhone must be unlocked and connected to the network being shared, and close to the other device.
4. Have the Other Person Tap the Network. On their iPhone or iPad: Settings > Wi-Fi, tap the network name and leave the password field empty. On a Mac: choose the network from Wi-Fi settings.
5. Tap Share Password, Then Done. The prompt appears on your screen within a few seconds. Their device fills in the password and connects.

The same prompt works from an iPad or a Mac as the sharing device, and to an iPad or a Mac as the receiving one. It does not work towards an Android phone, a Windows laptop or a games console, because the handshake is Apple-only - those take the QR code or the password itself.

Why Is the Share Password Prompt Not Showing Up?

The Share Password prompt appears only when every one of Apple's conditions holds at the same moment, and the usual culprit is the contact card: each person's Apple Account email or phone number must be saved in the other's Contacts. Personal Hotspot left on, a locked sharing iPhone and a different network name account for most of the rest.

Apple's own troubleshooting is short: restart both devices and try again, and if that fails, enter the password by hand. The checklist below is longer because it covers the causes behind that advice, in the order worth checking:

1. The contact card is missing or holds the wrong address. The card needs the email or phone number the other person signs in to their Apple Account with, not a work email they use for everything else. Add it on both phones; Apple's conditions run both ways.
2. Personal Hotspot is on, on either device. A phone sharing its own mobile data is not offering to share a Wi-Fi network. Turn it off in Settings > Personal Hotspot.
3. The sharing iPhone is locked, or the screen went dark. The prompt is delivered to an unlocked phone. Unlock it before the other person taps the network, and keep it awake.
4. The two devices are on different network names. The prompt shares the network the sharing iPhone is connected to. A router that broadcasts Home and Home-5G as separate SSIDs gives no prompt when the guest taps one and you are on the other.
5. The other device already saved a wrong password. If the guest typed a password earlier and it failed, their device may keep trying that one. Have them tap the Info button beside the network, choose Forget This Network, and tap it again.
6. Bluetooth is off, or the devices are too far apart. Bluetooth carries the request. Stand next to each other, not across the room.
7. Out-of-date software. Apple asks for the latest iOS, iPadOS or macOS on both. An older device in the pair is a frequent silent cause.
8. The network is not a password network. The prompt is built for networks joined with a single password. A work network that asks for a username, or a hotel network with a sign-in page, has nothing it can share.

When the prompt still will not come, stop fighting it and show a QR code instead. Show Network QR Code in the Passwords app needs no contact card, no Bluetooth and no Apple device on the other side, which is why it is the better route for anyone you are not close to.

How to Share a Wi-Fi Password From an iPhone to an Android Phone

An Android phone cannot receive Apple's Share Password prompt, so the route is a QR code: on iOS 18 or later, open the Passwords app, tap Wi-Fi, tap the network and tap Show Network QR Code, then let the Android phone scan it with its camera, Google Lens or the Wi-Fi settings scanner. On iOS 16 or 17, copy the password from Settings instead.

Three routes reach an Android phone, in order of preference:

1. Show Network QR Code (iOS 18 or later). No typing, no contact card, nothing installed. The Android phone joins in one tap after the scan. This is the route the rest of this section describes.
2. Copy the password (iOS 16 or later). Settings > Wi-Fi, tap the Info button beside the network, tap the Password field, authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID or the passcode, and tap Copy. Send it, or read it out. It works for any device that has a keyboard, which is its one advantage over the QR code.
3. A printed Wi-Fi QR code. For a network the same people join repeatedly - a holiday rental, an office, a family home with visiting relatives - a printed card means nobody needs your phone at all. The Wi-Fi QR code page covers making one.

1. Open the Passwords App. It is a separate app from iOS 18. Unlock it with Face ID, Touch ID or the passcode.
2. Tap Wi-Fi. The network you are connected to appears at the top; every network the iPhone has saved is listed below it.
3. Tap the Network. Any saved network can be chosen, not only the current one - useful for sharing a home network while you are away from it.
4. Tap Show Network QR Code. A QR code fills the screen. Turn the brightness up if the other phone struggles to read it.
5. Let the Other Phone Scan It. On Android, the camera, Google Lens or the scanner in Wi-Fi settings all work. On an iPhone, the Camera app. The phone offers to join, and one tap connects it.

Show Network QR Code on a screen has the same property as a printed code: the password is inside the pattern. Anyone who photographs your screen can decode the password later with any QR decoder, so hold the phone out for the person joining rather than putting it on a projector.

How to Find and Copy a Wi-Fi Password on an iPhone

On iOS 16 or later, open Settings > Wi-Fi, tap the Info button beside the network, tap the Password field and authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID or the passcode; the password appears and can be copied. On iOS 18 or later, the Passwords app lists every saved network under Wi-Fi with the same password field and a copy button.

For a network you joined in the past but are not near now, the two places differ. In Settings, tap Edit at the top right of the Wi-Fi screen to see known networks, then the Info button beside the one you need. In the Passwords app, every saved network is already in the Wi-Fi list.

Copying is the right choice for a device that cannot scan: a laptop without a camera, a smart TV, a printer, a games console. Paste it rather than reading it aloud where possible - the characters people confuse when a password is read out are exactly the ones a password generator likes to use, such as 0 and O, 1, l and I.

How to Share a Wi-Fi Password From a Mac

A Mac shares Wi-Fi the same two ways as an iPhone. With the Mac unlocked and connected, it shows a Share Password prompt when a nearby Apple device in your Contacts taps the network. In the Passwords app on macOS Sequoia 15 or later, select Wi-Fi, choose the network and click Show Network QR Code for anyone else.

Apple's conditions for a Mac are the same as for an iPhone: both devices within Bluetooth and Wi-Fi range, neither using Personal Hotspot, and each added to the other's contacts. To read a password on a Mac, hold the pointer over the dots beside Password in the Passwords app, and click them to copy. A QR code on a laptop screen is often easier for a guest to scan than one on a phone, because the screen is larger and steadier.

How to Scan a Wi-Fi QR Code on an iPhone or Android Phone

Point the built-in camera at the Wi-Fi QR code and tap the prompt to join; no Wi-Fi QR code scanner app is needed on an iPhone with iOS 11 or later or on a current Android phone. If the camera shows text beginning WIFI: instead of offering to join, use Google Lens or the scanner in Android's Wi-Fi settings, or Code Scanner on an iPhone.

The full set of routes, including where each Android brand hides its camera setting, is in how to scan a QR code on an iPhone and how to scan a QR code with an Android phone. For a code that arrived as a screenshot on a laptop, the QR code scanner reads it in the browser; scanning a QR code from an image covers the phone routes.

A Wi-Fi QR code that scans but will not join has one of four faults: a security type that does not match the router, an unescaped character in the password, a hidden network, or a password that has since changed. The QR code decoder splits a Wi-Fi code into network name, security type and password, which shows which of the four you have in a few seconds.

What Is Inside a Wi-Fi QR Code: The WIFI: Format

A Wi-Fi QR code is a QR code that stores a network's name, security type and password as text, so a phone that scans it can join without typing. The text follows one convention - WIFI:T:WPA;S:Home;P:mypassword;; - with each field a letter, a colon, a value and a semicolon, and two semicolons at the end.

An SSID is the broadcast name of a Wi-Fi network - the name a phone lists when it searches for networks to join. The SSID in the code has to match it exactly, including capitals and spaces; a code built for cafe-guest will not join Cafe-Guest.

Escaping is placing a backslash before a character the WIFI: format uses as syntax, so a scanner reads that character as part of the name or password. Five characters need it: the semicolon, comma, colon, backslash and double quote. A password of summer;2026 has to be written P:summer\;2026 in the code, or the semicolon ends the password early.

We measured what happens when it is not. In our test on 2 October 2026, six passwords were encoded both escaped and raw, decoded with jsQR and read with a parser that follows the published grammar. Every escaped password came back exactly. Unescaped, the QR code itself still decoded perfectly every time, but summer;2026 came back as summer and back\slash77 came back as backslash77 - the phone would read the code and then fail to join, which looks like a wrong password. The method and full results are in reports/wifi-payload/ in the site's repository.

Unescaped commas, colons and quotes survived that parser, but phone parsers are closed and not all of them are as forgiving, so the rule stays: escape all five. A generator does it for you. Hand-built payloads - in the Shortcuts app, a spreadsheet, or a generic text-to-QR tool - are where unescaped passwords come from.

When a Printed Wi-Fi QR Code Beats Sharing From Your Phone

Print a Wi-Fi QR code when the same network is joined by different people week after week - a café, a rental, an office reception. Share from the phone when it is one person, once. A printed code removes the owner from the loop, which is the whole benefit and also why it must point at a network you are happy to hand out.

If guests change daily and the password changes rarely, print a code. If the password changes every week, a printed card becomes a weekly reprint, and a router's own guest portal or app that issues fresh credentials may fit better. If the guest is a single visitor on one evening, the Passwords app's QR code is faster than printing anything.

A printed Wi-Fi QR code is a static code: the password sits inside the pattern, and no server stands between the scan and the network. That is why it works offline and never expires, and why it stops working the moment the password or the network name changes. There is no way to update it in place - static vs dynamic QR codes explains why a Wi-Fi code cannot be dynamic in the way a link can, because the phone needs the credentials themselves, not a redirect. Regenerate it, reprint it, and keep the exported file so the reprint takes two minutes.

A longer password makes a larger code. In our measurement with the site's generator, at its fixed level H error correction and a 12-character network name:

Every row is above the 2 cm floor for printed codes, so a Wi-Fi card at 3 cm or more is comfortable for a table or a door. A wall sign read from across a room needs far more - the minimum size guide gives 1 cm of width per 10 cm of reading distance. Hotels, rentals and coffee shops are the usual homes for these codes; QR codes for hotels and QR codes for coffee shops cover where to put them, and menus and table tents covers the card itself.

KoloQR, a free QR code generator with circular and custom-shaped QR codes, has a Wi-Fi type with WPA/WPA2/WPA3, WEP and open options, escapes the five reserved characters, and builds the code in the browser without sending the password anywhere. Export it as SVG or PDF for print. Styling is for looks only and never improves scanning; test the final file on one iPhone and one Android phone before printing. To make one, open the KoloQR generator and pick Wi-Fi.

WPA3, Hidden and Work Networks

WPA3 personal networks use the same T:WPA type as WPA2 in the Wi-Fi Alliance's own definition of the format, so a standard Wi-Fi QR code joins them. Hidden networks need the H:true flag in the code. Work networks that ask for a username as well as a password should not be shared either way.

• WPA3. The Wi-Fi Alliance's WPA3 specification sets the type to WPA for password networks and adds optional fields for its newer protections. Some Android phones have been reported to write T:SAE in the codes they share, which is outside the specification; if an Android-made code fails on another device, a generator that writes T:WPA usually fixes it. Apple's share prompt is unaffected, because it does not use a QR code.
• Mixed WPA2/WPA3 routers. A router in transition mode accepts both, and T:WPA covers both. A security type mismatch shows up as a code that scans and offers to join, then fails at the handshake - the first symptom on the Wi-Fi QR code troubleshooting list.
• Hidden networks. A network that does not broadcast its SSID needs H:true in the code, or some phones will not find it to join. Not every generator sets the flag; KoloQR's does not, so for a hidden guest network the simplest fix is to broadcast the name. Hiding an SSID adds little security, since the name still travels in the connection traffic.
• Work and university networks. A network that asks for a username and password, or a certificate, uses WPA2-Enterprise. Those credentials are personal and are usually installed by the organisation's IT team or a configuration profile; do not share them by QR code, and expect the share prompt not to offer them.
• Hotel and café networks with a sign-in page. The QR code or the prompt can get a phone onto the network, but the captive portal still appears afterwards. Nothing in a Wi-Fi QR code can answer it.

Is It Safe to Share Your Wi-Fi Password?

Sharing a Wi-Fi password gives the other person ongoing access to that network, not a one-time pass, so share the main network only with people you would give a house key to. For everyone else, run a guest network and share that. Every method - the prompt, the on-screen QR code and the printed one - hands over the real password.

A guest network is a separate Wi-Fi network on the same router that gives visitors internet access without access to the devices on the main network. Most home and small-business routers offer one in their admin app or web page. Guests get the internet; your laptop, printer, cameras and network drive stay out of reach.

The do's and don'ts that follow from that:

• Do put printed codes only on a guest network. A printed Wi-Fi QR code is a printed password. Anyone who photographs the card can decode it later - the general scanning guide makes the same point about Wi-Fi codes on display.
• Do not assume the share prompt keeps the password secret. The guest never sees it during the exchange, but it is saved on their device like any network they join, and an iPhone with iOS 16 or later typically lets its owner reveal saved Wi-Fi passwords in Settings.
• Do change the guest password when a tenant, employee or contractor leaves, and reprint every card in the same hour. A static code that still carries the old password is the most common reason a Wi-Fi card stops working.
• Do not send the main password in a group chat. A copied password lives in the chat history on every member's phone. A QR code shown in person leaves nothing behind.
• Do check a public Wi-Fi code before you trust it. A sticker over a café's real code can join you to someone else's network. Joining an unknown network is a risk in itself; prefer mobile data for anything sensitive.

If a Wi-Fi code does not scan at all, rather than scanning and failing to join, the fault is in the print rather than the payload - contrast, size, glare or a missing quiet zone - and why a QR code is not scanning works through those in order.