Password · guide

How to share wifi password, and what each route hands over

By Alberto Gulotta · Updated 7 September 2026 · 17 min read

How to share wifi password between two Apple devices: have the guest tap your network name, then tap Share Password on your unlocked phone. To share with anything else, show a QR code from the Passwords app or from Android’s Wi-Fi settings. The two are not the same gift: one hands over access, the other hands over the password.

The two ways of handing over a network, as the makers of each one document them
	The prompt (Apple to Apple)	A shared QR code	Source
What has to be true before it works	Six things: latest iOS, iPadOS or macOS on both; “on both devices, turn on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth”; each person signed into their own Apple Account; “if either device has Personal Hotspot on, turn it off”; each person in the other’s Contacts; devices close together	Nothing at all. A camera and the image	Apple; Google
Who has to be present	Both people, at once: “ask the person requesting the password to tap the Wi-Fi network name on their device”, and the card then appears on yours	Nobody. The code works whenever it is pointed at a camera	Apple; Google
Whether the password is ever displayed	No. On Apple’s page the password is only the thing being handed over, never something shown on either screen	Not documented. Google’s sharing section never uses the word “password”; Microsoft says only that the code “contains the Wi-Fi connection information”	Apple; Google; Microsoft
Works between an iPhone and an Android phone	No — both sides need an Apple Account and Bluetooth	Yes. Windows reads one too, through the Camera app in barcode mode	Apple; Microsoft
What the certified version of a Wi-Fi QR code does instead	Does not apply	Wi-Fi Easy Connect, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s own QR onboarding, is built on “public key cryptography for secure authentication” rather than on passing a shared password around	Wi-Fi Alliance

The difference is not convenience, it is what each route asks for before it works. Both sides of the figure are drawn from Apple’s and Google’s own instructions.

Decide first which of the two you are doing. Handing over access, or handing over the password. Between two Apple devices in the same room the prompt does the first; a QR code always does the second, whoever scans it and whenever.
For the prompt: get both devices ready. Apple’s own list, in its words: both on the latest iOS, iPadOS or macOS; “on both devices, turn on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth”; both signed into their own Apple Account; “if either device has Personal Hotspot on, turn it off”; “each person has the other person’s Apple Account email or phone number saved in Contacts”; and keep the devices close together.
Have the guest tap the network name, not you. The order is the opposite of what people try. Apple: “ask the person requesting the password to tap the Wi-Fi network name on their device”, and only then does the card appear on yours.
On your unlocked device, tap Share Password, then Done. Your device has to be unlocked and already connected. Nothing appears on a locked screen, and a locked screen looks exactly like a fault.
To read the password out on an iPhone instead: Settings, Wi-Fi, the Info button, the Password field. Apple gates it behind you: “use your passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID to unlock and reveal the password”. On iOS 18 the Passwords app does the same job and can “find, copy, and share Wi-Fi passwords for networks that you previously joined”.
For a QR code on Android: Settings, Network & internet, Internet, your network, then Share. Google’s own wording for what happens next: “your device will give you a QR code. To join the same network, have your friend scan the code with another device.”
If the prompt never comes, stop repeating it. Apple gives two steps and no third: “if you don’t see the setup animation, restart both devices and try again”, and “if you still can’t share your Wi-Fi password, have the other person enter the password manually”. The QR code is the better second attempt.

Apple’s list, in Apple’s order. The third is the one nobody thinks to check, and it is the one that silently stops the card from ever appearing.

What a QR code on the fridge is actually doing

It is a good idea in a café and a slightly different idea in a flat. The distinction is not privacy theatre: it is who can read the code and for how long.

What the code carries is not documented; what it asks for is Google’s sharing instructions never use the word “password”, and Apple does not describe the code at all. Microsoft goes furthest and stops early: point the camera “at the QR code that contains the Wi-Fi connection information”. So none of the three tells you what is inside it. What all three do make plain is the thing that matters in a flat: the code needs no account, no Bluetooth, no contact card and nobody present. A photograph of it taken across the room joins the network months later.

A published description of the format exists, and it is not Apple’s or Google’s The ZXing project, which maintains the open-source barcode library of the same name, publishes a Wi-Fi syntax on its wiki: WIFI:T:WPA;S:mynetwork;P:mypass;;. In it T is the authentication type and can be WEP, WPA, WPA2-EAP or “nopass for no password”; S is the “Network SSID. Required”; H marks a hidden network; and P is the “Password, ignored if T is nopass”. In that description the password travels in the code as text. Neither Apple nor Google says whether the code their software draws follows it, so we are not telling you that yours does. What holds either way is the part that matters at a kitchen wall: whoever scans your code reads whatever is in it.

Which is fine, until the password protects something else A network password that is used nowhere else is a small thing to give away. The trouble is that home network passwords are often the one people can remember, which means they are often the one reused. If yours is reused anywhere, the QR code is not a Wi-Fi decision.

The prompt has the opposite property, and a narrower reach It never reveals the password, but it only works Apple to Apple, needs Bluetooth, and needs the two people to be in each other’s Contacts. It is the better route when it is available and it is often not available — which is why both belong on the same page.

Three reasons the prompt does not appear, in the order worth checking

Personal Hotspot is on. Apple states the condition as a plain instruction: “if either device has Personal Hotspot on, turn it off”. Either device — so a hotspot left running on the guest’s phone from a train journey blocks a card on yours, and nothing on screen ever mentions it.

You are not in each other’s Contacts. Apple’s wording is specific about which detail: “each person has the other person’s Apple Account email or phone number saved in Contacts”. A contact card holding a different address for the same person does not count.

Your device is locked, or the wrong person tapped first. The sequence only runs one way: the guest selects the network, and the card then appears on the unlocked device that is already connected. Starting from the sharing device does nothing at all, and looks identical to a fault.

And then it is two steps, not a loop. Apple offers exactly two remedies and no more: restart both devices and try again, and if that fails, “have the other person enter the password manually”. Trying the same tap a fifth time is not one of them.

Four boxes and no loop. The commonest mistake is repeating the second one, which Apple describes as a single step rather than a habit.

Why the order of taps is back to front. Almost everybody starts on the phone that knows the password, looking for a Share button. There is not one. Apple describes the sequence from the other end: “ask the person requesting the password to tap the Wi-Fi network name on their device”, and the card then appears on yours. The feature is a response to a request, not an offer, and once you know that, most of the failures explain themselves — a locked screen has nothing to respond with, and a device that is not itself on the network has nothing to give.

The QR code is the route that keeps working when the clever one stops. It needs no Bluetooth, no contact card, no shared account and no particular pair of brands. Google documents the Android path under the heading “share Wi-Fi info from the Settings app”: Settings, Network & internet, Internet, your network, then Share, and “your device will give you a QR code”. Microsoft documents the other end of the same gesture, on Windows: open the Camera app, switch to barcode mode, and “point your device’s camera at the QR code”. Two companies, two halves of one exchange, neither of which needs the other to have agreed to anything first.

There is a standardised Wi-Fi QR code, and it is not the one on your fridge. The Wi-Fi Alliance certifies a mechanism called Wi-Fi Easy Connect, whose whole point is onboarding a device by “scanning a product quick response (QR) code”, and whose listed features include “public key cryptography for secure authentication”. That is a different arrangement from handing a shared secret to a stranger’s camera: it is designed for devices with no screen, and it survives the network being renamed. The code your phone draws in Settings is the everyday cousin, and neither Apple nor Google says which of the two it is.

What none of this changes. Sharing does not create a guest network, does not limit what the guest’s device can reach once it is on, and does not expire. A phone that joined your network in March is still on it in September unless you change the password, and changing the password disconnects everything you own at the same time. Sharing is a convenience at the door; it is not a permission system, and no phone setting turns it into one.

The conditions, the tap order, the two remedies and the way to reveal a saved password are quoted from two Apple support pages, read on 7 September 2026. The Android path is Google’s wording, the Windows camera path and the “Network security key” box are Microsoft’s, and the description of Wi-Fi Easy Connect is the Wi-Fi Alliance’s. That none of them says what is inside the code is a fact about the documents, not a claim about the code. The one published description of the format is the ZXing project’s wiki, read on 7 September 2026, and it is quoted as theirs and not as Apple’s or Google’s. The judgement about printed codes is ours.

Where to start

Four ways in.

“Both phones are iPhones.”: The prompt, and its conditions — the two routes
“One of them is Android.”: Then a QR code — see what a code carries
“Nothing appears on my phone.”: Three causes, in order — when nothing appears
“I want it on the wall for guests.”: Read what that hands over — what a code carries

The two routes

One gives access and hides the password; the other gives the password and works with anything. Both are worth having, for different rooms.

What a network security key isThe name Windows gives the same secret, and the protocol that decides what it is worth.Open this guide → Finding a wifi passwordWhere the password is written on each system, when nobody remembers it.Open this guide → Saved passwords on an iPhoneWhere the phone keeps what it has saved, and who else can open that list.Open this guide →

What a code carries

None of the three makers documents what is inside a Wi-Fi QR code; the ZXing project publishes a format that carries the password as text. What all three document is that it needs no account and nobody present.

Changing a wifi passwordThe one thing that actually removes a device from the network, and what it costs.Open this guide → Two-factor and two-stepWhat the standard requires, and why the two names are not the same claim.Open this guide → After a data breachWhat a reused password turns into once a company loses a list of them.Open this guide →

When nothing appears

A hotspot on either device, a missing contact card, or a locked screen. Three conditions, none of which the phone tells you about.

Connecting to wifiCaptive networks, auto-join, and the settings that decide what your device does on its own.Open this guide → When an authenticator stops workingThe clock, the app version, and a feature that was withdrawn rather than broken.Open this guide → Forgotten Mac passwordThe three reset routes, and the keychain that does not come back with the account.Open this guide →

The wider question

Sharing is a convenience at the door. It is not a permission system, it does not expire, and no setting on a phone turns it into one.

Turning two-factor offWhere the option still exists, where it does not, and the two clean-ups afterwards.Open this guide → Wifi that keeps disconnectingPower management, auto-switching, and the report your computer already keeps.Open this guide → Password-protecting a folderWhat device encryption covers, and where the recovery key for it lives.Open this guide →

Questions people also ask

How do I share a Wi-Fi password from iPhone to iPhone?

Have the other person tap your network name on their device. With both devices unlocked, close together, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on, Personal Hotspot off and each of you in the other’s Contacts, a card appears on yours: tap Share Password, then Done.

How do I show the Wi-Fi password on an iPhone?

Settings, Wi-Fi, the Info button beside the network, then the Password field. Apple: “use your passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID to unlock and reveal the password”. On iOS 18 the Passwords app can “find, copy, and share Wi-Fi passwords for networks that you previously joined”.

Can I share a Wi-Fi password between an iPhone and an Android phone?

Not with the prompt: Apple requires both people to be signed into Apple Accounts and saved in each other’s Contacts. A QR code crosses over. Android generates one from Settings, and Windows reads one through the Camera app in barcode mode.

Does a Wi-Fi QR code give away the password?

Neither Apple nor Google documents what their code contains. A published description of the format, from the ZXing project, carries the password as text in a field called P. Either way the code needs no account and nobody present, so whoever holds the image can join.

Why is there no Share Password option on my iPhone?

Almost always one of the conditions: a Personal Hotspot running on either device, the two of you not in each other’s Contacts under the Apple Account address, or the sharing device locked. Apple’s own remedy is to restart both devices once, then type the password in.

Not covered here. It covers Windows only as the far end of a QR code. Reading a saved password out of the adapter settings, and the “Network security key” box it is written in, belong to what a network security key is.

It will not set up a guest network for you. That is a router decision, not a phone one, and it is the only arrangement that really separates visitors from everything else on the network.

And it will not tell you your network is safe because the password was never spoken aloud. The password is exactly as strong as it was; only the delivery changed. What holds instead is simple: every condition, path and remedy on this page is quoted from the documentation of the company that built the feature — Apple, Google, Microsoft and the Wi-Fi Alliance — with the date each was read.

Sources

Apple Support — How to share your Wi-Fi password from your iPhone or iPad: the conditions before you begin, the tap order, and the two remedies when nothing appears — support.apple.com, read 7 September 2026.
Apple Support — Find your saved Wi-Fi passwords on iPhone or iPad: the Settings route, the biometric gate, and what the Passwords app can do on iOS 18 — support.apple.com, read 7 September 2026.
Google — Android Help, Connect to Wi-Fi networks on your Android device: the sharing path in Settings, and the fact that the section never mentions the password — support.google.com, read 7 September 2026.
Microsoft — Connect to a Wi-Fi network in Windows: reading a Wi-Fi QR code through the Camera app, and the Network security key box that holds the same secret — support.microsoft.com, read 7 September 2026.
ZXing — Barcode Contents, the project wiki: the proposed Wi-Fi syntax WIFI:T:...;S:...;P:...;; and what each field carries, including the password in P — github.com, read 7 September 2026.
Wi-Fi Alliance — Access: Wi-Fi Easy Connect, the certified QR onboarding mechanism, and its use of public key cryptography rather than a shared password — www.wi-fi.org, read 7 September 2026.

Written by Alberto Gulotta

Founder and editor of AI Tools Primer, writing from Palermo, Italy. Thirty-five years of taking computers apart, starting with a Commodore 64 — the long version is on the about page.

Something wrong on this page? Write to aitoolsprimer@gmail.com and it gets fixed.

Written on 7 September 2026.

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