How to turn on a VPN on iPhone

After you've installed one of the best VPN for iPhone apps, or one installed for your workplace, you still need to turn it on. Here's how to do it!

VPN apps from a VPN service provider have buttons to toggle a VPN on and off, which makes is easy to turn on a VPN with a single click. Sometimes though, you need to turn on a VPN connection manually.

For example, VPNs provided by most employers do not have an app to toggle the connection. Sometimes, your VPN app may freeze, leaving you no obvious way to turn the VPN on.

Manually turning the VPN connection on is important in these cases. Fortunately, turning a VPN connection on is simply a matter of heading to Settings and sliding a toggle.

How to tell if your VPN connection is active

Open Control Center on your iPhone to see if you're connected via a VPN. VPN status is displayed next to your carrier name and WiFi strength indicators. If the VPN icon doesn't appear, you are not connected to a VPN.

Smartphone control center showing various settings icons including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, airplane mode, volume, brightness, Focus mode, flashlight, calculator, and camera.one

VPN status can be found in the Control Center

How to toggle your VPN connection on

VPN connections are controlled from System Settings. VPN is the last menu item in the first group where all the connection settings are.

Here's how to manually switch your VPN on.

Open Settings
Tap VPN

The VPN Status toggle will be off if there is no VPN connection.

Slide the toggle to activate your VPN connection.

iPhone displaying VPN settings with multiple VPN options listed, such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, Proton VPN, and Surfshark. VPN status is shown as 'Not Connected.'

You can turn your VPN connection on in the System settings.

Switching between VPN providers to turn on a VPN

If you need to switch between different VPN connections to turn on a different VPN, you can pick from installed VPN connections to turn on a specific one.