How to set up a VPN on your iPhone (the easy way)

Setting up a VPN on an iPhone is genuinely a two-minute job, and there are two ways to do it. For almost everyone, the app method below is the right one — it’s faster, more secure, and gives you the extra features that make a VPN worth having. The manual method exists for niche cases, and we’ll cover it briefly too.

The easy way: use the app

This is what you want in almost every case:

1. Install the VPN app from the App Store and open it.
2. Sign in with your account.
3. Tap Connect. The first time, iOS asks permission to add a VPN configuration — approve it with Face ID or your passcode.
4. That’s it. A small “VPN” badge appears in your status bar when you’re protected.

Once it’s running, turn on two settings inside the app: auto-connect on untrusted Wi-Fi, so you’re protected the moment you join a café or airport network, and the kill switch, so nothing leaks if the connection drops. You can download our iOS app and be connected before your coffee’s ready.

The manual way (and why you probably don’t want it)

iOS does let you add a VPN by hand under Settings → General → VPN & Device Management, typing in server addresses and keys. It works, but you lose the good stuff — no server switching, no kill switch, no auto-connect — and it’s fiddly to maintain. Only bother if you’re connecting to a specific corporate or self-hosted server that requires it.

Quick troubleshooting

If a site won’t load, try a different server — occasionally one is busy. If your bank app complains, that’s the app blocking VPN IPs; split tunneling lets you route just that app around the tunnel. And if you ever want to check it’s actually working, run our Privacy Check with the VPN on and confirm it shows the server’s location, not yours.