iPhone or iPad
Apple’s steps- Settings → Wi-Fi.
- Turn Wi-Fi on. “Your device automatically searches for available Wi-Fi networks.”
- Tap the network’s name. “You might be asked to enter the network’s password first, or agree to terms and conditions.”
Software · guide
How to connect to wifi, and why a café is different
By Alberto Gulotta · Updated · 10 min read
At home this is a few steps: open the settings, pick the network, type the password. The other case is a hotel, an airport or a café, where the phone can join the network and still not load a page until its login page has been completed.
Windows 11
Microsoft’s steps- Select the Network, Sound or Battery icons on the taskbar to open quick settings.
- On the Wi-Fi quick setting, select Manage Wi-Fi connections.
- Choose the network and select Connect, then type the password and select Next.
On Windows 10, Microsoft’s steps start from the Network icon on the taskbar and end with a Yes or No on whether other PCs and devices on the network can discover yours.
What each system shows on screen. Apple: “Look for the blue checkmark next to the network name, and the Wi-Fi icon in the upper corner of your screen. This means you’re successfully connected.” Microsoft’s Windows 11 steps describe the opposite signal: “the Disconnected icon appears when you’re not connected”. If the network you expect is not listed at all, Microsoft’s Windows 11 steps name the control for it: “you can manually start a new Wi-Fi scan by selecting the Refresh network list”.
For a home or an office network that is the whole of it: pick the name, type the password, and check what the screen shows. For a password you do not have, Apple’s advice is to “contact your network administrator”; Microsoft’s page shows how to read a saved password on a Windows PC that has already connected to the network.
One small convenience is worth knowing because it removes the typing entirely. Microsoft, for Windows 11: “On Windows devices that have a camera, you can use it to scan a QR code to quickly connect to a Wi-Fi network without needing to manually enter network details.” It adds where these turn up — “in public places like coffee shops” — or on another Windows device.
Which brings us to the case this page exists for.
“Captive networks are public networks that you subscribe to and pay for. They’re also called ‘subscription’ or ‘Wi-Fi Hotspot’ networks. You can find these networks in coffee shops, internet cafes, hotels, airports…”
This is where the simple version stops working, and it has a name. Joining the network and reaching the internet are two separate events — the phone connects, and then a login screen has to appear and be dealt with. Apple’s instruction is patient: “Tap the name of the network, then wait for a login screen to appear.” And a warning worth having before a holiday: “When you use captive Wi-Fi networks, fees and other charges might apply.”
The distinction in that box is the thing to hold on to. Being connected to the network is not the same as being on the internet. On a captive network the connection succeeds first, and a page then has to appear asking for a user name and password, an email address, or a tick on some terms. When nothing loads, the connection may not have failed: the login may not have happened yet.
Apple also gives another route: “tap the More Info button next to the network’s name, then tap Join Network.”
The three options that look alike
If you joined through the More Info button and the captive network then says it has no internet, Apple offers three options that do quite different things.
- Without Internet
- Dismisses the Welcome screen and turns off Auto-Login for the network — but “keeps your device associated with the network and allows you to use the network in other ways”. You stay on the network. Apple also says that turning Auto-Login off is how to see the Welcome screen “the next time that you connect to the network”.
- Other Network
- Dismisses the screen and disassociates the device, returning you to Wi-Fi Settings “where you can choose a different network”.
- Cancel
- “Returns you to the Welcome screen.”
One more Cancel matters, the one on the login page itself: “When you tap Cancel on the login screen, you disassociate the device from the captive Wi-Fi network.”
There is a matching setting for the network you have already used once and want back automatically. Apple: your devices “can remember network and login information so that you can automatically reconnect to that network when you’re in range” — and if that is not happening, tap More Info beside the name and “make sure that Auto-Join is on”.
What this page will not do is tell you which public network is safe to use. That is a different question. The guides on HTTP and HTTPS and on private DNS cover part of it, and Microsoft documents one protection on the device itself, for places such as shopping malls: random hardware addresses, which make it “harder for people to track you when your device scans for networks and connects”.
Nor will it help with a network whose password you do not have, beyond asking the administrator or reading the password on a PC already connected.
The guides below take it three ways: passwords and pairing, a shared network, and a connection that does not work.
Where to start
Three ways in. If you are in a café and nothing loads, take the second.
- “I just need the steps.”
- Both systems are at the top — the steps
- “It says connected but nothing loads.”
- That is the captive case — a captive network
- “It will not connect at all.”
- Different problem — when it will not
Passwords, pairing and QR codes
Pairing headphones, finding and changing a Wi-Fi password, and scanning a QR code.
Pairing Bluetooth headphonesBoth vendors document one half of this and, for other makers’ headphones, hand the other to the headphones’ own instructions.Open this guide →
Finding a wifi passwordWhere the operating system keeps it, and how to read it back out.Open this guide →
Changing a wifi passwordThe FTC says there are two passwords on a router, and only one is the one you came for.Open this guide →
Scanning a QR codeWhat a computer can do without a phone, and the case where it still needs one.Open this guide →
On a shared network
HTTPS, private browsing and private DNS: what each one covers.
HTTP and HTTPSThe S is about the connection, not the site — and Google says so under its own padlock.Open this guide →
Private browsingWhat a private window hides, from whom, and the three parties it does not hide you from.Open this guide →
Private DNSWhat it changes, what it does not, and who can still see what.Open this guide →
When it will not
Wi-Fi that will not work, a slow connection, and resetting network settings on an iPhone.
Wifi not workingThe checks in the order that finds the fault fastest, and the one that rules out half the causes.Open this guide →
Slow internetWhat a regulator publishes as enough — so you can tell a slow line from a small plan.Open this guide →
Network settings on iPhoneEvery saved Wi-Fi password goes — and so does the phone’s own name, which the menu does not warn you about.Open this guide →
Not covered here. It will not tell you a public network is safe. How you joined it says nothing about that.
It will not recover a password you were not given. Apple says to contact the network administrator.
And it will not treat “connected” as “working”: on a captive network, Apple’s steps put a login between the two. What holds instead is simple: every step and every warning about a café login screen is Apple’s or Microsoft’s own, and this page adds no shortcut of its own.
Sources
- Apple, Connect to Wi-Fi on your iPhone or iPad (the steps of going to Settings and tapping Wi-Fi, turning Wi-Fi on so the device automatically searches for available networks, and tapping the name of the network to join, with the note that a password may be required or terms and conditions agreed to; the instruction to contact the network administrator if the password is not known; and that a blue checkmark next to the network name together with the Wi-Fi icon in the upper corner of the screen means the device is successfully connected) — support.apple.com, read 16 September and 28 September 2026.
- Apple, Use captive Wi-Fi networks on your iPhone or iPad (that captive networks are public networks which are subscribed to and paid for, also called subscription or Wi-Fi Hotspot networks, found in coffee shops, internet cafes, hotels, airports and other public locations, and in some countries sponsored and maintained by wireless carriers; that joining one means tapping the network name and waiting for a login screen to appear, or tapping the More Info button and then Join Network, then entering a user name and password, an email address, or acknowledging terms and conditions; that fees and other charges might apply; that tapping Cancel on the login screen disassociates the device from the network; the three options offered when, after joining through the More Info button, a network is reported as not connected to the internet — Without Internet, which dismisses the welcome screen and turns off Auto-Login while keeping the device associated with the network, Other Network, which dismisses the screen and disassociates the device and returns to Wi-Fi Settings, and Cancel, which returns to the Welcome screen; and that devices can remember network and login information to reconnect automatically when in range, with Auto-Join to be checked under the More Info button if that is not happening, and Auto-Login to be turned off to see the Welcome screen the next time the device connects) — support.apple.com, read 22 August and 28 September 2026.
- Microsoft, Connect to a Wi-Fi network in Windows (the Windows 11 steps of selecting the Network, Sound or Battery icons on the taskbar to open quick settings, selecting Manage Wi-Fi connections on the Wi-Fi quick setting, choosing the network and selecting Connect, then typing the network password and selecting Next; the note that the Disconnected icon appears when not connected; the Refresh network list control for manually starting a new Wi-Fi scan when an expected network is not shown; that on Windows devices with a camera a QR code can be scanned to connect without manually entering network details, with such codes found in public places like coffee shops or on another Windows device; the Windows 10 steps, starting from the Network icon and ending with a Yes or No on whether the PC is discoverable; that a saved Wi-Fi password can be read on a Windows PC that has already connected to the network; and the random hardware addresses that make tracking harder in public places) — support.microsoft.com, read 6 September and 28 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 22 August 2026 · last checked 30 September 2026.
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