How (and why) to pause your VPN

Auto-connect and pausing

The auto-connect feature is a great way to make sure you get the most security out of your NordVPN account. However, when you use NordVPN, you can’t disconnect from it without disabling auto-connect first. It’s easy to forget to turn on auto-connect again, which can leave you unsecured. This is where the pause feature comes into play — you can disconnect when needed without disabling auto-connect.

You can pause your VPN for 5 min, 30 min, or 1 hour on Android devices and for 5 min, 15 min, or 1 hour on Windows. The pause feature is not available on other operating systems or devices at the moment.

When might pausing NordVPN be useful?

While we recommend keeping your VPN turned on at all times to stay secure online, there are several cases when pausing it might be also beneficial:

• Viewing content that is available in your region but restricted in the country where the server you’re connected to is based (in case there are no servers in your country);
• Setting up an internet connection for the first time and whitelisting your router’s IP;
• Authenticating yourself and connecting to Wi-Fi in hotels;
• Troubleshooting network issues.

How to pause your VPN

1. Make sure you are connected to a server.
2. Press Disconnect.
3. Choose for how long you would like to pause your VPN and tap the selection.

This works exactly the same for both Android and Windows. When the time elapses, your VPN connection will be restored automatically — no further actions needed.

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