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Your Mac Can Auto-Join an iPhone Hotspot in macOS Tahoe

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Apr 12, 2001
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macOS Tahoe 26 includes support for automatically joining your iPhone's Personal Hotspot when no Wi-Fi network is available, so you no longer need to manually connect.

macOS-Tahoe-26-Thumb-2.jpg

To set up automatic joining in macOS Tahoe, you can click on the Wi-Fi button in the menu bar or Control Center to open up Wi-Fi Settings. From there, scroll down to the bottom where it says "Ask to join hotspots" and click to select the Automatic option.

With Auto-Join Hotspot turned on, when your Mac doesn't have Wi-Fi available and is near an iPhone or iPad providing a Personal Hotspot, it will automatically attempt to join it.

automatic-hotspot-macos-tahoe.jpg

Auto-Join works with Family Sharing, so you can set up your Mac to automatically connect to a family member's Personal Hotspot, or allow their Mac to automatically connect to yours.

Article Link: Your Mac Can Auto-Join an iPhone Hotspot in macOS Tahoe
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/16/macos-tahoe-hotspot-auto-join/
Handy... but I didn't see anything wrong with the old popup and manually joining. Seems like it's something that could have been added in previous OS
 
Since my cell carrier has a strong signal, blazing fast speeds, and cheap prices, I no longer have a WiFi at home and exclusively use my hotspot.

It has been quite annoying to have to turn it on on the phone so frequently, so this is a much asked feature from me (via feedback app) (and no doubt many in my situation).

One question that I haven’t tested yet is that frequently I see my neighbor’s iPhone hotspot.

Does auto join any hotspot or only those it has been authenticated to like during manual join?

I think it must be the latter but ask out of an abundance of caution as I’m not keen (spoof hotspot for MIM attack?) on just attaching to any hotspot in the neighborhood, train or plane.
 
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Robert.Walter said:
Since my cell carrier has a strong signal, blazing fast speeds, and cheap prices, I no longer have a WiFi at home and exclusively use my hotspot.

It has been quite annoying to have to turn it on on the phone so frequently, so this is a much asked feature from me (via feedback app) (and no doubt many in my situation).

One question that I haven’t tested yet is that frequently I see my neighbor’s iPhone hotspot.

Does auto join any hotspot or only those it has been authenticated to like during manual join?

I think it must be the latter but ask out of an abundance of caution as I’m not keen (spoof hotspot for MIM attack?) on just attaching to any hotspot in the neighborhood, train or plane.
Click to expand...

I did the same and haven’t had a Wi-Fi router for a few years so this is welcome as I feel your pain in manually connecting.

You can forget networks so can set your neighbours phone to ignore. Also your Mac would need to know their hotspot password anyway which I assume you don’t have?
 
But will it automatically join my iPhone’s hotspot if my Comcast internet decides to go offline?
 
Willis said:
Handy... but I didn't see anything wrong with the old popup and manually joining. Seems like it's something that could have been added in previous OS
Click to expand...
For me, the main reason to do this is that Apple has significantly improved cellular Hotspot feature. It not only joins my iPhone hotspot much more quickly (5 to 10 seconds), it also happens very reliably and without fail. And when I close my Mac, wait several seconds to disconnect, then reopen, it rejoins the Wi-Fi nearly instantly.
 
Last edited:
MacRumors said:


macOS Tahoe 26 includes support for automatically joining your iPhone's Personal Hotspot when no Wi-Fi network is available, so you no longer need to manually connect.

macOS-Tahoe-26-Thumb-2.jpg

To set up automatic joining in macOS Tahoe, you can click on the Wi-Fi button in the menu bar or Control Center to open up Wi-Fi Settings. From there, scroll down to the bottom where it says "Ask to join hotspots" and click to select the Automatic option.

With Auto-Join Hotspot turned on, when your Mac doesn't have Wi-Fi available and is near an iPhone or iPad providing a Personal Hotspot, it will automatically attempt to join it.

automatic-hotspot-macos-tahoe.jpg

Auto-Join works with Family Sharing, so you can set up your Mac to automatically connect to a family member's Personal Hotspot, or allow their Mac to automatically connect to yours.

Article Link: Your Mac Can Auto-Join an iPhone Hotspot in macOS Tahoe
Click to expand...
What I want is for my iPhone to connect to Wi-Fi when the T-Mobile cellular signal is weak.

In some parts of the house and depending on the alignment of the stars my phone won't connect to the internet and i have to kill the cellular connection to get it to flip to the Wi-Fi. Maybe Tahoe and the new 17 Pro will do better than my 13 Pro. But won't know that for several days. I've gone through the setting many times over the years to no avail. Don't know if it's an Apple or T-Mobile problem.
 
I’ve always found the hotspot feature on iPhone to be extremely unreliable.
I’ve used for some time as my sole internet access at home and it wasn’t too bad on the Xr but a bit slow.
On the 15 Pro it has been a constant nightmare, regularly disconnecting sometimes every 10 minutes and sometimes it was impossible to reconnect unless I switched airplane mode on and off on the iPhone and switched wifi off then on on the Mac. The Mac would also never be able to activate the hotspot itself.
Sometimes it would need a reboot from both the Mac and iPhone. A complete disaster.

Now I use my work phone who is an android and it works perfectly. Moreover there are many more settings to configure the hotspot on Android.
 
East India Company said:
I’ve always found the hotspot feature on iPhone to be extremely unreliable.
I’ve used for some time as my sole internet access at home and it wasn’t too bad on the Xr but a bit slow.
On the 15 Pro it has been a constant nightmare, regularly disconnecting sometimes every 10 minutes and sometimes it was impossible to reconnect unless I switched airplane mode on and off on the iPhone and switched wifi off then on on the Mac. The Mac would also never be able to activate the hotspot itself.
Sometimes it would need a reboot from both the Mac and iPhone. A complete disaster.

Now I use my work phone who is an android and it works perfectly. Moreover there are many more settings to configure the hotspot on Android.
Click to expand...
The easiest way to achieve a reliable hotspot connection is by
1. Connecting your iPhone to your Mac with a cable
2. Turning on Personal Hotspot in the Control Center
3. Turning OFF WiFi on your Mac
 
Btw, did the iPhone personal hotspot always used IPv4 addresses like 192.0.0.2 instead of 192.168.0.2 or 10.0.0.2?
 
indefinite said:
The easiest way to achieve a reliable hotspot connection is by
1. Connecting your iPhone to your Mac with a cable
2. Turning on Personal Hotspot in the Control Center
3. Turning OFF WiFi on your Mac
Click to expand...
You really don’t have to do that anymore with Tahoe. Apple made it a lot more rock solid.
 
indefinite said:
The easiest way to achieve a reliable hotspot connection is by
1. Connecting your iPhone to your Mac with a cable
2. Turning on Personal Hotspot in the Control Center
3. Turning OFF WiFi on your Mac
Click to expand...
1. Was not a plausible scenario as I move my MacBook around the house.
2. Did that hundreds of times.
3. The hotspot IS a wifi connection...

Android just works. I step in the house and all my devices have instantly wifi. And it's fully configurable.
 
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