It can be painful to share the Wi-Fi passwords at your work or home. But if you’ve ever had to help a visiting family member, QR codes can simplify this.
A good password might be 10 digits, numbers, and other “special” characters that you’re probably tired of typing, and hate spelling out for people. But there’s a cool macOS feature that allows you to share it with people in your contact book simply by generating a QR code.
Generating a QR code for your password means people you want to share it with can access it simply by pointing their camera at the image. In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to turn your Wi-Fi info into a QR code that you can post. You can still keep your Wi-Fi secure while making it easy for people to join your network.
Generating the code
To generate the code, I’m using QR Code Generator. There are other things you can do with QR Code Generator, but the Wi-Fi feature is the one we’ll focus on here.
On QR Code Generator site, enter your network name. Then enter your password and encryption type. (If you don’t know your encryption type, it’s likely WPA/WPA2.)
Be sure to get the spelling/case 100% correct, or QR Code Generator won’t generate the code.
Once the code is generated, you can change the color if you wish.
Next, add “Scan Me” to the image.
Now all that’s left is to download the QR code and post it somewhere. You can even carve it into wood. (But please test it first!)
Sharing the QR code
Now, when someone comes into your workplace or home, you no longer need to spell out your safe but complex code and they no longer need to enter it character by character. They simply need to take out their phone’s camera and point it at the QR code.
Boom, they’re on your network! No typing is needed.
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This is Really cool. I have to do this all the time for people. I love not having to post the code. Thanks!!
Seemed awesome until I found out that http://qr-code-generator.com/ is $120 a year for two QR codes. That’s a horrible rip off! Isn’t there some better way?
How strange Alvin. So, I just went and tried it. I got an interstitial page (please wait…) encouraging me to sign up. But I didn’t. And I just generated five different QR codes.
And I’ll mention that I’m not logged in nor have an account!
When I recorded it, there was no interstitial pop-up – but it’s a good item to add to the article. Monday!
And just as a quick mention, here are three other (unchecked) services
https://wifiqrcode.com/locale/en/
https://qifi.org/
https://qrcode.tec-it.com/en/wifi
Thanks. Some questions:
Is this free? If not, is there a free application to do the same? I have tried the indicated web site at
https://www.qr-code-generator.com
but nothing happens after entering the URL. Should I register and login first?
In summary, I just want to create a QR code to enter the credentials to login the University server, without having to type such credentials.
Finally, is it safe to use sites like the one above. I mean, to disclose the credentials to generate the QR code.
Hi Max. It’s free (although owned by bit.ly)
I have NOT registered there and it works fine on my systems. I tested it right now, just to triple-check. Mac/Win/iOS and different browsers.
Perhaps it’s something being either blocked by a browser extension or a URL blocked on your network (which is out of your control).
A quick easy test? Open up an incognito/private window in your browser and see it works.
I can completely see the case use at a University Lab or Library to make it fast/easy for guests to login. That’s 100% the right case usage!
These sorts of tools are safe (in my opinion). If your school has the wifi access physically posted? It’s as exposed as using something like this. The resulting pattern for generating a QR code should be identical, given the same Name+Password+URL schema.
Hope that helps!
Thanks Jeff. I worked now! I guess that the problem before was that I did not wait a bit for the code to ge generated.