How to Turn your Mac into a Wi-Fi hotspot

You may be familiar with using tethering to convert your iPhone into a Wi-Fi hotspot, but did you know that you can turn your Mac to a Wi-Fi hotspot?

At first glance, this may not sound as useful as sharing your iPhone’s cellular data, but in some cases, you may want to share your Mac’s Wi-Fi with other devices.

Read:- How to See Wi-Fi Password on Mac

You may have purchased an Internet package at a hotel, only to find out later that there is an Ethernet port. How will you survive when you have a Mac, iPhone, and iPad that you all need to be online 24/7? Or maybe you are partying at your house and you do not want your Wi-Fi password to be known to the public.

In this article, I show you how to turn your Mac into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot so that you can share its connection with any Wi-Fi enabled device.

Turn your Mac into a hotspot

Imagine that you booked a pleasant and comfortable stay in a lodge for your entire family, assuring that the place offers free and unlimited Wi-Fi. When you arrive, imagine your disappointment that this “free unlimited internet” is really just an Ethernet socket.

Don’t worry: You can connect your Mac to this single Ethernet port, then turn it into a Wi-Fi hotspot that all your people can see:

• Connect your Mac to the Ethernet port using the appropriate cable.
• Select the “Apple” logo from your Mac’s menu bar.
• Go to “System Preferences …> Sharing”.
• In the left menu, choose “Internet Sharing”.
• Open “Share your connection from the drop-down menu”, then select “Ethernet”.
• In “Computers using the field”, select “Wi-Fi”.
• Select “Wi-Fi Options …”. switch.
• Now you need to set a password so that people in neighboring lodges cannot hijack your Wi-Fi network. Open the “Security” drop-down menu and select “WPA2 Personal”.
• In the “Password” field, enter the password you want to use, then repeat this password in the “Verify” field.
• Once you are satisfied with the information entered, click “OK”.
• In the left menu, find “Internet Sharing” and check the corresponding box.
• Read the information on the screen and if you want to continue, click “Start”.

You have now successfully converted your Mac into a Wi-Fi hotspot! If you look at your Mac’s menu bar, you should see that the classic Wi-Fi icon has been replaced with a small arrow icon, which indicates that you are sharing your Wi-Fi connection.

Connect to your new Wi-Fi hotspot

Now you can connect to this hotspot, just as you connect to a Wi-Fi network. For example, if you want to connect your iPhone or iPad, you need to do the following:

• Launch the “Settings” application on your mobile device.
• Choose “Wi-Fi”, then select your mobile hotspot.
• Enter the password you created in the previous section.

After a few moments, your iPhone or iPad should be online! Rinse and repeat for each device you want to connect to this access point.

What if I can’t connect to Ethernet?

Let’s return to our lodge landscape. Imagine planning to plug your Mac into an Ethernet jack and use it as a personal hotspot – then you realize you’ve forgotten to pack your Ethernet cable!

The bad news is that by default your Mac can only connect to a Wi-Fi network or host its own network, so you can’t connect to a Wi-Fi network and then rebroadcast that signal Can form Wi-Fi network. One possible solution is to purchase a Wi-Fi network adapter that allows one network interface to receive a Wi-Fi connection and the other to rebroadcast it.

You can also share a Wi-Fi connection with other devices via a Bluetooth personal network. The resulting connection will be slower than sharing an Ethernet connection over Wi-Fi, but you don’t need to buy special adapters for this.

To share a Wi-Fi connection via Bluetooth:

• Go to “System Preferences …> Sharing”.
• In the left menu, choose “Internet Sharing”.
• Open “Share your connection from the drop-down menu”, then select “Wi-Fi”.
• In “Computers using the field”, select “Bluetooth PAN”.
• Select “Wi-Fi Options …”. Then create your password.
• Once you are satisfied with the information entered, click “OK”.
• In the left menu, find “Internet Sharing” and check the corresponding box.
• Read the warning, then click “Start” if you are OK to continue.

Connect to a hotspot via Bluetooth

To connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot via Bluetooth, you must enable the Personal Hotspot function. Suppose you connect your iPad or iPhone to your Mac:

• Launch the “Settings” application on your iPad or iPhone.
• Select “Bluetooth” and activate the Bluetooth connection of the device, if it is not already activated.
• Go to “Settings> Mobile Data” and activate your “Personal Hotspot”.

Then you need to connect two devices:

• On your Mac, go to “System Preferences …> Bluetooth”.
• If your Mac’s Bluetooth connection is not already activated, select “Activate Bluetooth”.
• Find your iPhone or iPad in the “Device” list, then choose the “Pair” button that comes with it.
• Code should now appear on both devices; Type this code on your Mac to connect the two devices.

Once you successfully connect both devices, you are ready to connect to your access point:

• On your iPhone or iPad, launch the “Settings” application.
• Select “Wi-Fi”, then search for the Mac you want to connect to. Press “Join”.
• Enter your Wi-Fi password when prompted. After a few moments, your iPhone or iPad should have unlimited Internet access!

Conclusion

I hope you were able to turn your Mac into a Wi-Fi hotspot after following the above instructions. If you failed in doing so; then write us for personal assistance if any needed, we can have a professional technician to address your issue.