You have an address and a port, something like 203.0.113.10:8080, and you want Windows to send your traffic through it. This walks through exactly where that goes, what each box wants, and how to tell whether it actually worked.
Nothing here assumes you have done it before.
Before you start: what you should have
A proxy is two pieces of information, and sometimes four:
- The address. Either an IP like
203.0.113.10or a hostname likegate.example.com. - The port. A number, usually between 80 and 65535. Common ones are 8080, 3128 and 1080.
- A username and password, but only if you are paying for the proxy. Free proxies taken off a public list never have these.
If somebody handed you a single string like 203.0.113.10:8080, the part before the colon is the address and the part after it is the port. Windows wants those two pieces in two separate boxes, so keep that split in mind.
Windows 11
-
Press the Windows key and type
proxy. Click Change proxy settings. If you would rather click through it: Settings, then Network and internet, then Proxy at the bottom of the list. -
Find the section called Manual proxy setup and click Edit next to Use a proxy server.
-
A small window opens. Switch Use a proxy server on.
-
In Proxy IP address, type the address on its own. No
http://in front of it. Just203.0.113.10. -
In Port, type the port number on its own. Just
8080. -
Leave the box below it alone unless you know you need it. It holds a list of addresses that should skip the proxy, and the default entry is fine for now.
-
Click Save.
That is the whole thing. The setting takes effect immediately and there is nothing to restart.
Windows 10
Same setting, slightly different wording.
-
Start, then Settings, then Network & Internet, then Proxy in the left-hand column.
-
Scroll to Manual proxy setup and turn Use a proxy server on.
-
Put the address in Address and the port in Port, the same way as above.
-
Click Save.
If your proxy needs a username and password
Windows 11 shows a checkbox in that same edit window once the proxy is switched on. Tick it, then fill in the two fields exactly as your provider wrote them. Both are case sensitive, and a trailing space copied along with the password is a genuinely common cause of failure.
Windows 10 does not show those fields on the settings page. It waits until something actually uses the proxy, then pops up a login box in the browser. Type the credentials there and tick the option to remember them.
If you are using a free public proxy, skip this section entirely. Free proxies have no login. If one is asking you for a password, it is not offering you access, it is somebody's private proxy that you cannot use.
Check that it worked
Open a browser and visit any site that reports your IP address. If the proxy is working, the address it shows you will be the proxy's address rather than your own.
The HProxy proxy checker does the same job more precisely: paste the proxy in and it opens a real connection to it, tells you whether it answered, which protocols it spoke, and how long it took. That is worth doing before you put it into Windows, because it separates "the proxy is dead" from "I typed something wrong", and those two feel identical from inside a stalled browser.
When it does not work
Everything stopped loading. The proxy is almost certainly offline. Turn it off using the steps above and your connection comes straight back. This is not something you broke.
Windows will not accept the address. You probably pasted 203.0.113.10:8080 into the address box. Remove the colon and everything after it, and put the port in its own box.
It works in Edge but not in Firefox. Firefox keeps its own proxy setting and ignores the Windows one. That is normal and expected behaviour, not a fault.
It works in the browser but not in some other program. Plenty of software ignores the system proxy: many games, most torrent clients, and a lot of command line tools. Each one needs configuring on its own.
A word about free proxies
If this address came off a public free list, expect it to stop working. Not eventually, but often within hours. Free proxies are overwhelmingly machines that were misconfigured by accident, and they disappear the moment somebody notices or reboots.
We publish a free proxy list and we are blunt about this on every page of it: each address there is tested continuously by opening a real connection to it, and the uptime percentage you see is the measured result rather than a promise. Even the good ones come and go.
That is fine for casual use. If something you actually depend on is going through the proxy, that is the point at which a free one stops being a bargain.