How to Set Up a Proxy on iPhone and Android

Both iPhone and Android have a proxy setting built in. It sits in the settings of each Wi-Fi network, it takes a host and a port, and it sends your browser traffic out through another IP address. With a residential proxy, that IP is a home connection in the country or city you pick, so sites on your phone see a local visitor instead of you.

The setting is easy to find once you know where it is. What trips people up is everything around it: where to put the username and password, why the proxy stops when you leave the Wi-Fi, and why some apps ignore it. This guide covers both phones, then shows how to check the result.

What you need before you start

Have four details ready. With Shifter you find them in the dashboard under Residential Proxies.

Field	Value
Server (host)	p.shifter.io
Port	443
Username	your proxy username, with targeting options added
Password	your proxy password

The host and port stay the same for every location. Targeting lives in the username: customer-USERNAME-country-us gives you a US IP, and customer-USERNAME-country-us-city-new_york a New York one. Our guide on how to connect to a residential proxy explains each part of the format.

One tip for phones: add a sticky session. Without one, you get a new IP on every request, which can log you out of sites or trigger security checks halfway through a page. A username such as customer-USERNAME-country-us-sid-phone1-ttl-1800 keeps the same IP for 30 minutes.

How to set up a proxy on iPhone (iOS)

1. Open Settings and tap Wi-Fi.
2. Tap the info button (the blue “i”) next to the network you are connected to.
3. Scroll to the bottom and tap Configure Proxy.
4. Choose Manual.
5. Enter p.shifter.io as the Server and 443 as the Port.
6. Turn on Authentication and enter your proxy Username and Password.
7. Tap Save in the top right corner.

The iPhone saves the sign-in with the network, so you do not type it again. The same steps work on an iPad.

The Automatic option on the same screen is for a PAC file: a small script at a URL that tells the device which proxy to use for which site. Companies use it to manage many devices; for one phone, Manual is simpler.

How to set up a proxy on Android

Menu names change a little between phone makers and Android versions. On a Pixel or a phone close to stock Android:

1. Open Settings > Network & internet > Internet.
2. Tap the gear icon next to the Wi-Fi network you are connected to.
3. Tap the pencil (Edit) icon at the top.
4. Open Advanced options.
5. Under Proxy, choose Manual.
6. Enter p.shifter.io as the Proxy hostname and 443 as the Proxy port.
7. Tap Save.

On a Samsung Galaxy the path is Settings > Connections > Wi-Fi, then the gear icon next to your network, View more and Proxy > Manual.

Signing in on Android

The Android screen has no fields for a username and password. When you open a site in Chrome, it shows a sign-in box for the proxy. Enter your full proxy username, targeting included, and your password, and Chrome remembers them for that session.

Under the proxy fields Android itself warns that the HTTP proxy is used by the browser but may not be used by other apps. Treat it that way: the built-in setting is for browsing. Apps that do not show a sign-in box will fail to connect through a proxy that needs one, or will skip the proxy and use your normal connection.

Check that the proxy works

Open ip-info.com in Safari or Chrome on the phone. It should show the proxy’s IP and the country or city you targeted, not your home network. If you set a sticky session, reload the page: the IP should stay the same until the session ends.

If the IP is right but a site still shows your real country, the cause is usually the browser, not the proxy: a saved country choice on the site, your phone’s language, or a WebRTC leak.

Limits of the built-in setting

• One Wi-Fi network only. The proxy is saved per network. On mobile data, or on another Wi-Fi network, the phone connects without it. Phones do not have a simple proxy switch for mobile data.
• HTTP only. Neither phone accepts a SOCKS5 proxy in the Wi-Fi settings.
• Not every app follows it. Browsers do. Apps with their own network code, video calls and many games can skip it. Check the app you care about, not only the browser.
• It is not a VPN. The proxy carries only the traffic that uses it, and it does not encrypt your whole device. On public Wi-Fi a VPN protects more.

If you manage social accounts from your phone, these limits matter: a login that jumps between the proxy IP and your own looks odd to the platform. Our page on proxies for social media covers how teams keep one stable IP per account.

Find the proxy address and port already set on your phone

If someone else set up the phone, you can read the current proxy in the same place. On iPhone, open Settings > Wi-Fi, tap the info button and look at Configure Proxy: Manual shows the server and port. On Android, open the network’s Advanced options and look under Proxy. If it says None or Off, the phone connects directly on that network.

Fix common problems

• A sign-in box keeps coming back, or you see a 407 error. The username or password is wrong, or the targeting part of the username has a typo. Copy both again from the dashboard. Our guide on fixing 407 proxy errors walks through every cause.
• Pages do not load at all. Check the host and port, and switch Wi-Fi off and on again so the phone applies the new settings.
• The IP changes on every page. Add a session ID and a time to live to the username, as shown above.
• An app ignores the proxy. That is the app, not the proxy. Use the browser version of the service, or a computer where you can set the proxy for the whole system.

To stop using the proxy, go back to the same screen and set it to Off (iPhone) or None (Android).

The bottom line

Setting a proxy on a phone takes two minutes: Wi-Fi settings, Manual, host, port and sign-in. It works best for browsing on one Wi-Fi network, with a sticky session so the IP holds while you work. For apps that ignore it, or for long sessions on many sites, a computer gives you more control, and our guide to setting up a proxy on Windows and macOS covers that next step.