If you’re like most, when you go over to a friend’s house one of the very first things you’ll ask them is for their wifi password. If you’re at a coffee shop or restaurant, before you even sit down, you’re asking for the wifi password. In essence, wherever we go, we’re constantly hunting for the wifi password. But maybe the coffee shop owner doesn’t remember the password, so what are you going to do then? Well, it looks like you won’t be connecting to the wifi anytime soon which means you’ll need to use your data instead. However, this whole process has become suddenly easier with the Apple’s iOS 11 update.

Apple’s offering a new feature called “Share Your Wi-Fi” which does exactly what it says it does. If you need to connect to a wifi network but no one can remember the password, you’re not out of luck. Instead, with a few simple steps, you’ll be able to quickly connect to someone’s already connected device and have the password populated which will connect your device right away. This way, no one has to remember the wifi password, yet, everyone is able to connect to the network.

Sounds great, right? This way, there’s no need to have it written down anywhere, you don’t have to worry about forgetting it and you won’t need to deal with any QR codes. This feature is available on iOS 11 or macOS High Sierra. You’ll need both devices to be updated on iOS 11 or macOS High Sierra and make sure that they both have wifi and Bluetooth toggles turned on.  As long as you have these requirements, then you’ll have no problem connecting your iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch or Mac computer to the wifi network.

How to Connect to the Wifi Network

Here are the steps needed in order to share and connect to a wifi network.

On your device, open the wifi settings and select the network which you’d like to connect to. This needs to be the same network which the other device is already connected to. Once you’ve selected the desired network, the “enter password” screen will appear.

The iPhone which is already connected to the wifi network will need to be unlocked in order for this to work properly. To unlock the iPhone enter the password or Touch ID/Face ID to unlock it.

Now, if nothing happens to the iPhone right away, place the devices closer together. This way, the unconnected device will be able to send a request to the connected device.

Now, you’ll be able to send the password over. If everything is set up properly and your device is closely situated to the connected device, a large prompt will appear on the connected device’s screening asking if they want to share the wifi password with the unconnected device. It will literally say: “Do you want to share the Wi-Fi password for ‘[Network Name]’ with [Contact or Device’s Name]?”

When this appears the person will tap on “share password” which will send the password over to the unconnected device. The unconnected device will receive an immediate message showing that it’s being connected and if all goes well, will connect to the network. Now, all that needs to be completed is pressing ‘done’ on the already connected device

After that, your device will be connected to the wifi network. In addition, this is also a great idea if you’re not comfortable with releasing your wifi password to everyone, thus, this allows you control of who’s using your network and when. So, stop wasting your time with remembering your wifi password and repeating it out to everyone when they come over. Instead, use this method.