Ever find yourself in a situation where you need a Wi-Fi connection but you’re nowhere near a wireless router? You can use your iPhone as a personal hotspot. What is a personal hotspot? The hotspot on your iPhone can provide a Wi-Fi connection to your other devices. But what if someone you don’t want using your hotspot connects to it? Here’s how to use the hotspot on the iPhone and kick other devices off of it.

Why You’ll Love This Tip:

See who has used your iPhone’s personal hotspot in the past.
Remove any devices you don’t want connected to your hotspot.

How to Use the Hotspot on Your iPhone & Remove Devices

System Requirements

This tip should work on all versions of iOS, but the steps and screenshots below were captured on iOS 18. Find out how to update to the latest version of iOS.

When others are using your hotspot, you won’t be able to see their connections in real-time. However, you can see which devices have connected to your hotspot in the past. Now, here’s how to see and remove people from your iPhone’s personal hotspot:

Open the Settings app, and tap Personal Hotspot.
Tap the toggle next to Allow Others to Join to turn it on and activate your hotspot.
Tap Wi-Fi password to change the password if you haven’t already. In addition to being good practice, this will prevent anyone you don't want from joining your hotspot after you kick them off.
Once a device is connected to your hotspot, go into Settings and tap Cellular.
Tap Scroll down to the Cellular Data section, and tap Show All.
Scroll down and tap Personal Hotspot.
Here, you can see devices that have connected to the hotspot on your iPhone and used your cellular data connection.
If you want to know how to remove a device from your iPhone hotspot, you will have to turn it off. To do this, swipe down from the upper right to open the Control Center.
Long press the lower right corner of the Connectivity control (if you removed the Connectivity Control while customizing your Control Center, you can tap the antennae icon on the right side of your screen).
You can see how many devices are connected to your hotspot under the hotspot icon. Tap the icon to disable your hotspot and disconnect anyone who is currently using it.
Your hotspot icon will be gray and say "Off" when disconnected.

That’s how to remove hotspot connected devices on your iPhone. If you are concerned about others continuing to use your hotspot data the next time you turn it on, I recommend changing the password, as seen in step 3. Next, find out how to change your hotspot name on iPhone.