How do I share my WiFi password?

If the person is with you, use your phone. An iPhone offers to share the password automatically when another Apple device nearby tries to join and the two of you have each other saved as contacts. Android and recent versions of Windows show a QR code for the network that any phone camera can read. If the person is not with you, send it through a link that expires rather than a message that stays in a thread forever.

How do I find my WiFi password if I have forgotten it?

On Windows, open the settings for the wireless connection you are using and show the security key. On a Mac, search Keychain Access for the network name and reveal the password. On Android, the saved network entry offers to share it as a QR code. Failing all of that, most routers print the default password on a sticker underneath, which works only if nobody has changed it.

Is it safe to give someone my WiFi password?

It depends what else is on the network. Someone on your main WiFi is inside your home network, alongside your printers, cameras, network storage and anything else running an old default password. For a trusted guest that is usually an acceptable risk. For a visiting contractor, a short-term tenant or anyone you do not know well, put them on the guest network instead, which gives them internet access without the rest.

Should I put guests on a separate network?

Yes, wherever the router supports it, which nearly all of them now do. A guest network hands out internet access while keeping visitors away from the devices on your main network, and it lets you change the guest password freely without re-connecting everything you own. It is the single most useful thing you can do about WiFi sharing.

How do I share WiFi with someone who is not in the room?

Avoid putting it anywhere that keeps it: chat threads, email and shared documents all hold on to it long after the visit is over, readable by anyone who later gets into that account. Send it through a link that shows the password once and then deletes itself, and give the network name separately so the two halves are never in the same place.

Should I change my WiFi password after someone has used it?

For an ordinary guest, no. Change it when someone has access you no longer want them to have, such as a former tenant, someone leaving a small office, or after a stay by people you do not know. If you find yourself wanting to change it often, that is a sign the guest network should be doing this job, because changing the guest password costs you nothing.

How to share a WiFi password (and when not to)

If the person is standing next to you, your phone can share the password without either of you reading it out. If they are somewhere else, the question is no longer how to transfer it but which channel you are prepared to leave it sitting in, possibly for years.

Those two situations have genuinely different answers, so take them separately.

If they are in the room

Every current platform has built this in, and all of these avoid the password being spoken aloud, written on a whiteboard, or typed in by someone squinting at a router sticker.

iPhone to iPhone or Mac. Have the other device try to join the network while unlocked and nearby. A prompt appears on yours offering to share the password. It needs each of you to have the other saved as a contact, with the address on their Apple account.
Android. Open the current network in settings and choose Share. It shows a QR code, and any phone camera will join from it. Nothing needs installing on either side.
Windows 11. Recent versions show a QR code for the network you are connected to, in the properties for that connection.
A printed QR code. For cafes, offices and holiday lets this is the sensible answer. Generate one for the guest network, print it, put it on the wall, and never answer the question again.

A QR code on a wall is fine because the people who can see it are the people already inside the building, which is the same group that could simply have asked you. That logic stops working the moment the code leaves the room, which is worth remembering before anyone photographs it into a group chat.

Finding the password when you have forgotten it

Sharing is usually blocked by a more basic problem, which is that nobody has typed this password since the router was installed.

Windows. In the settings for the wireless connection you are using, the security key can be shown in plain text.
macOS. Open Keychain Access, search for the network name, open the entry and tick the box to show the password. It asks for your Mac login first.
Android. The saved network entry will hand you a QR code, which is usually faster than recovering the text.
The router itself. Log into its admin page, or read the sticker underneath. The sticker only helps if the password was never changed, and if it was never changed, that is worth fixing while you are in there.

The guest network is the real answer

Most of the awkwardness around WiFi passwords comes from one network being asked to do two jobs.

Your main network is not just internet access. It is the segment holding your printer, your network storage, your cameras and whatever else has been plugged in over the years, much of it running firmware nobody has updated and passwords nobody has changed. Handing out the main password puts someone in among all of it.

A guest network gives internet access and nothing else. Nearly every router made in the last decade has one, usually a single checkbox away. Two things get easier immediately:

Visitors get online without being on the same network as your devices.
You can change the guest password whenever you like, because nothing you own is connected to it. Changing the main one means re-connecting every device in the building.

Give it a plain name and a password you are willing to say out loud, and the sharing problem mostly stops being a problem.

If they are not in the room

Now it has to travel, and the usual options share one flaw: they keep it. A message in a chat thread is readable by everyone in that thread forever, and is exported wholesale if the account is ever compromised. An email sits in two mailboxes and in every backup of both. A note in a shared document outlives everyone who remembers why it was written.

A holiday let password pasted into a booking chat three years ago is still there, still working, still readable by anyone who gets into either account. That is the actual risk, and it has nothing to do with how strong the password was.

Send it through something that expires instead. A one-time link shows the password once and then deletes it, so the credential stops existing at the point it has been read rather than at the point somebody remembers to tidy up.

Two habits make it meaningfully better:

Split the halves. Send the network name one way and the password another. Neither is much use alone, and this is the everyday version of out-of-band delivery.
Send the guest network, not the main one. Anyone remote enough to need a message is exactly the person who does not need to be on the same network as your network storage.

When to change it instead of sharing it

Sharing and rotating are different decisions, and rotating is cheaper than people assume once a guest network exists.

A tenant or housemate moves out. Change it. Their devices will otherwise rejoin automatically every time they are in range.
Someone leaves a small office. Change it, for the same reason, and before the laptop goes back in the bag.
After guests you do not know well. Change the guest password. It costs nothing and re-connects nothing.
It has been in a group chat for years. Change it, then stop putting it in group chats.
An ordinary friend visited. Leave it. Security theatre has a cost, and this one buys nothing.

What not to do

Do not reuse a password you use elsewhere. WiFi passwords are shared by design, which makes them the worst possible candidate for reuse.
Do not put it in a recurring message. Booking confirmations, welcome emails and onboarding documents are durable, searchable and often forwarded.
Do not photograph the router sticker into a chat. That image usually carries the admin password as well, which is a considerably bigger problem than the WiFi one.
Do not rely on hiding a weak password. If it is short enough to read out comfortably, it is short enough to be guessed by software that does nothing else all day. Use a long one and share it properly.