If a friend or family member comes over to your house and wants to hop on your Wi-Fi network, iOS 11 has made it way easier to share your Wi-Fi password with very little friction. Here's how to do it.
Normally, when a friend wants to access your home Wi-Fi, you tell them the password and they type it in on their device. This is not easy if your password is secure (and thus hard to remember and type). Thankfully, iOS 11 takes care of that, but there are a few stipulations:
- The user must have a Mac or iOS device running macOS High Sierra or iOS 11, respectively.
- The user will need to be in your contacts list.
- Bluetooth must be enabled on both devices.
- Your device must be connected to your Wi-Fi network before you can share the password.
With all that set up and ready to go, here's how it's done.
First off, make sure your iPhone is awake and unlocked. Then have the other person go into Settings > Wi-Fi and select the Wi-Fi network to bring up the password prompt.
Get near the other user so that the two devices can communicate with each other. It uses Bluetooth, so you don't have to be directly next to each other---in the same room should work just fine. Once the password prompt appears on the user's device, a pop-up will appear on your iPhone asking if you want to share the Wi-Fi password with them. Tap "Share Password".
If this pop-up doesn't appear at first, lock your iPhone and unlock it again. It should pop up that time around.
If you're using a Mac to a share the password with someone else, you'll receive a notification banner up in the top-right corner. Click on "Share" to authorize it.
Once you authorize the sharing of your Wi-Fi password, it will be automatically filled in on their own device and connect to your Wi-Fi network. That's it!
