Frequently asked questions

An Android phone (8.0 or newer, no root), a SIM with mobile data, the free app, and a mobileproxy.app account. That's it — the phone becomes the proxy; we handle the tunnel, gateway, credentials, and API around it.

Sign in on the web, copy the one-time PIN from your dashboard, open the app, tap Pair with PIN, and type it. The phone appears as an online device within seconds. The PIN is single-use and expires after a few minutes.

No. The app runs on stock Android 8 and newer using ordinary Android network APIs — no root, no custom ROM, no ADB tricks.

No. The exit node must be an Android phone. You can manage everything from any device via the web dashboard, but the phone serving the proxy has to run Android.

Android 8.0 or newer. See the devices guide for the phones we've tested and tips for running one 24/7.

SOCKS5, HTTP(S), and SOCKS5 UDP. Each proxy port speaks one protocol — SOCKS5 or HTTP(S) — chosen when you create it; create one port of each if a tool needs both (they share the device's exit IP and rotate together). Use socks5h:// so DNS resolves through the proxy on the phone's carrier network, or http://user:pass@host:PORT on an HTTP(S) port. SOCKS5 ports also carry UDP, so QUIC/HTTP3 and DNS work too.

Create a proxy on a device to get a host, port, username, and password (and a ready-to-paste socks5h:// URL). Put those in any SOCKS5 proxy field — browsers, antidetect browsers, scrapers, curl.

Yes. A device can serve several proxies — up to 10 on Standard, up to 20 on Pro — mint one per tool or customer so you can meter and revoke each independently. They all share the phone's single carrier IP and rotate together.

Yes, with the VPN add-on — $4.99 per device/month, billed on the same period as the order ($47.90/device/year on annual, $1.50/device/week on the Pro 7-day plan). Each SOCKS5 proxy on the device can then export 1 WireGuard and 1 OpenVPN config that tunnel a whole device — phone, laptop, router — through that proxy's carrier IP, and SafeVPN Plus, our companion one-tap consumer VPN app, is included: the same login unlocks Plus there. Add it at checkout or per order on the Orders page; adding mid-cycle is charged prorated immediately, removing takes effect at the end of the period.

The proxy's IP and location are your phone's — determined by where the phone physically is and which carrier's SIM it uses. There's no separate country selector: to serve a given country, put a phone with a local SIM there.

Three ways: the Change IP button in the dashboard or app, a tokenized rotation link you can call from any tool, or the change-ip API endpoint.

It's applied within roughly 25 seconds. A new IP is not guaranteed — the carrier decides. Some carriers re-assign the same IP on a quick re-dial; a full radio detach (airplane mode held 5+ seconds) is far more likely to produce a new one. We report rotation as best-effort.

Yes. Call the change-ip endpoint with your API token, or fetch a rotation link URL (no auth header needed) from a cron job or your own tooling.

The control tunnel rides your Wi-Fi while proxy traffic still exits the SIM. The exit IP stays cellular, but your mobile-data plan does roughly half the work. It's automatic — it kicks in on its own whenever the phone has reliable Wi-Fi, with no toggle to flip.

The proxy goes offline and the dashboard shows it — status reflects the gateway's real view of the tunnel, and last-seen tells you if a device is flapping. When the phone recovers, it reconnects automatically.

Almost always Android battery optimization killing the app in the background. Exempt the app from battery optimization (the setup guides you there) and keep the phone charged.

Yes, per phone — the only cap is your own SIM's data plan. We charge a flat price for the software, not per gigabyte.

One paired phone (or tablet) with an active SIM. Each gets its own gateway port and its own credentials. You can swap the SIM in a phone; it's still one device.

Your devices pause — nothing is deleted immediately, and your own phone and SIM are always yours. Re-subscribe to bring them back online.

No. The app only relays proxy sessions that arrive through the tunnel, and those exit via the SIM. Your own apps and browsing are untouched, and we can't see them.