13 simple ways to help you speed up sharing your network connection via Personal Hotspot on iPhone

Is the personal hotspot you use on your iPhone running very slow? If you want to share your iPhone’s network connection with your phone, Mac, Windows computer, or tablet over Wi-Fi, you need to understand that there are many factors that can slow down your personal hotspot – including the ability to cellular data reception and apps running on iPhone. Don’t worry, though – there’s a simple fix for every cause of slow personal hotspot. This article guides you through 13 effective ways to help you increase the speed of your personal hotspot on your iPhone.

Table of Contents

Bridging the gap between devices.

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If the iPhone and the device connected to the iPhone are not close to each other, the Wi-Fi network connection will be very weak. Devices that use iPhone as a personal hotspot need to be located closer to the iPhone than the Wi-Fi router. ^{[1] X Research Source}

If you have an iPhone 12 or later with Maximum Compatibility turned off, keep devices up to 5 meters apart.
For all other iPhones (including iPhone 12 and later with Maximum Compatibility enabled), place devices up to 9 meters apart for best network connection speeds.
You also need to remove obstacles from other devices in the same range, including 2.4GHz cordless phones and Bluetooth accessories, and remove any physical barriers (including loud furniture) between the two. device.

Turn off Maximum Compatibility mode on iPhone 12 and newer models

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The Maximum Compatibility personal hotspot setting helps determine the 2.4GHz or 5GHz frequency for your iPhone’s personal hotspot. If Maximum Compatibility is turned on, iPhone will be a Wi-Fi hotspot with a frequency of 2.4GHz – which has Wi-Fi speeds slower than 5GHz. ^{[2] X Research Source} Disabling Maximum Compatibility forces iPhone to become a 5GHz hotspot to increase connection speed.

Open your iPhone’s Settings.
Tap Personal Hotspot
If you see the Maximum Compatibility slider in the On position in green, tap the slider to turn it off. This improves the speed of nearby devices.
Note, although the 5GHz band is faster than the 2.4GHz band, the 5GHz access point has less coverage than 2.4GHz. ^{[3] X Research Sources}
If you’re having trouble with Wi-Fi speeds, try connecting via Bluetooth or USB.

Use Wi-Fi or USB instead of Bluetooth.

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Bluetooth is slower than Wi-Fi, with a limit of 1Mbps for Bluetooth 4 and 2Mbps for Bluetooth 5. Devices that use iPhone as a personal hotspot should try connecting to iPhone as a Wi-Fi hotspot instead of Bluetooth .

If your Mac has a slow connection, you can connect to your personal hotspot with a USB cable – just connect with a Lightning cable and select Trust .

Improved personal hotspot’s mobile data collection.

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If the iPhone does not have a good signal reception, other devices will have difficulty using the iPhone as an access point. Because iPhone shares the cellular connection instead of the Wi-Fi connection, cellular network issues can slow down the hotspot’s speed.

Check the signal level in the upper-left corner of your iPhone’s home screen – the best time to use your iPhone as an access point is when the signal bars are full.
If you only see 3 or less wave levels, try improving the wave level by increasing altitude, moving out of or near a window, or away from physical and electronic obstacles.

Use a 5G network (if available).

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If your carrier (and your iPhone) supports 5G, you should use a 5G network for the best data speeds. If you see 5G next to your iPhone’s range, you already have a 5G connection. If you see LTE, try switching to 5G (if available). Proceed as follows:

Open your iPhone’s Settings.
Tap Cellular .
Tap Cellular Data Options .
If your iPhone supports 5G, you can select Voice & Data and select 5G On – this option drains battery power but is useful when iPhone is used as an access point. If you choose 5G Auto (5G Auto), iPhone will automatically switch to LTE whenever the 5G network doesn’t provide a “good experience” (according to Apple). ^{[4] X Research Sources}

Turn off low data mode

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If you limit the amount of cellular data your iPhone can use, it can make iPhone an inefficient hotspot. Maximizing cellular data for iPhone will improve the connection speed of any device that uses iPhone as an access point. The way to check is as follows:

Open your iPhone’s Settings.
Tap Cellular .
Tap Cellular Data Options .
If your iPhone doesn’t have 5G, you’ll see a “Low Data Mode” slider on this screen. If the slider is green, you’ll tap it to turn off Low Data Mode.
If your iPhone has 5G, you now need to tap Data Mode . For the highest 5G speed, you will select Allow More Data on 5G . Or, you can choose Standard if you’re worried about overcharging. Make sure you don’t select Low Data Mode here if you want to speed up the access point.

Close open apps on iPhone.

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Opening too many apps on your iPhone can slow down the operating speed. If the apps use a mobile data connection, the device connected through the hotspot, the iPhone, will have to “compromise” the data. Likewise, playing games or watching videos on iPhone will slow down the device’s processing speed.

Closing apps when iPhone is used as an access point can free up bandwidth.
- To close open apps on an iPhone without a Home button, you’ll swipe up from the bottom of the home screen and pause in the middle. Next, swipe up on each app you don’t use to close it. ^{[5] X Research Sources}
- If your iPhone has a Home button, simply press the Home button twice quickly to see your open apps, and then swipe each app up to close.

Prevent apps from refreshing in the background.

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iPhone apps that you allow to update or refresh in the background can consume data. Fortunately, you can easily disable background refresh for individual apps, and temporarily disable all background refreshes when iPhone is used as an access point:

Open your iPhone’s Settings.
Tap General .
Tap Background App Refresh .
To disable all background refreshes, you would tap Background App Refresh at the top and select Off . When you turn off this feature, apps on iPhone won’t update with new content (such as receiving emails) unless you open them. ^{[6] X Research Sources}
Or, you can enable Background App Refresh and disable it for individual apps – use the slider next to the app name in the list to manually adjust it.

Turn off automatic app updates.

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If your iPhone wants to update apps while it’s being used as an hotspot, you’ll need to disable updates to increase connection speed. You can block the download of updates using mobile data instead of disabling it completely. Proceed as follows:

Open your iPhone’s Settings .
Tap the App Store .
Tap the slider next to “Automatic Downloads” just below “Cellular Data” to turn it off.
Since iPhone doesn’t download iOS updates using cellular data (unless 5G data boost is enabled), you don’t need to make changes for over-the-air OS updates.

Reduce the number of connected devices.

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If too many devices use iPhone as an access point, the connection speed will be slow. To see the number of people connected to the hotspot, you’ll open the Contrp Center by swiping the home screen from the top right corner (if your iPhone has Face ID) or swiping up from the bottom ( if iPhone has Touch ID). Next, touch and hold the Wi-Fi icon – the number of connected devices shows up under “Personal Hotspot”.

If Family Sharing is on, you can turn off a member’s auto-join. Go to Settings > Personal Hotspot > Family Sharing , select a member, and turn on the option to ask for permission. ^{[7] X Research Sources}
If you don’t use Family Sharing, the only way to block someone’s connection is to turn off the hotspot – go to the Personal Hotspot icon in the control center, or go to Settings > Personal Hotspot and tap the “Allow” slider Others to Join” to turn off.
You can change the password of your personal hotspot if the device does not stop connecting. Go to Settings > Personal Hotspot , tap Wi-Fi Password , then enter a new password.
If someone is already connected to the hotspot via Bluetooth, you can turn off Bluetooth to disconnect.

Restart the device.

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If the device connected to the personal hotspot on iPhone still has a slow connection, the cause may not be connection related. You should try restarting the iPhone, and the device is connecting to the iPhone. Restarting the device will clear software errors that slow down the device’s operation.

Use a USB cable instead of Wi-Fi (if the device is a computer).

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If your Wi-Fi connection isn’t up to full speed, you can connect your Windows or Mac computer to your iPhone using a USB cable instead of Wi-Fi. Using a cable means you won’t need Wi-Fi and create a direct connection between your computer and iPhone. How to connect via USB as follows:

Open iTunes if you use a Windows computer.
When you connect your computer to iPhone, tap Trust on the iPhone screen.
Your Windows or Mac computer will automatically connect once Personal Hotspot has been enabled on your iPhone.

Change the intended use of the access point.

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If your personal hotspot is still slow and you’ve tried everything, perhaps you should change the purpose of the hotspot. If you use the hotspot to watch online videos or play games that require an enhanced network connection, you won’t get the speeds you would when connecting to a router for high-speed internet.

Steps