Connecting and switching servers

The screenshots here are from the iPhone and Mac apps. Android looks the same as iPhone, and Windows looks the same as Mac.

The Connect screen at a glance

Element	What it means
The big button	Tap to connect or disconnect. Grey means disconnected, green means connected; the timer shows how long this session has been running
Status text	Tap to connect, Connecting… or Connected · Encrypted
Down / Up	Your current download and upload speed
Ping	Round-trip time to a test address through the encrypted tunnel, in milliseconds (ms). Lower is faster
Server card	The server you’re using, its number and ping. Tap it to open the server list
Top-right status	Online / Offline on phones; on Mac, a green dot with the country code (e.g. JP)

Connect and disconnect

To connect, tap the button in the middle. The status changes to Connecting… and then Connected · Encrypted. The first time, your system asks you to allow the VPN configuration — see the install guide for your platform.

To disconnect, tap the button again while connected. A Disconnect? prompt appears — tap Disconnect.

Smart select: the fastest server, automatically

By default the server card shows Smart select. Pangolin checks your current network, picks the server with the lowest ping, and shows which one it chose on the card — for example “Tokyo · JP · #003”.

Most of the time you can leave it on Smart select and never think about servers.

Pick a server yourself

Tap Servers at the bottom (in the sidebar on Mac) to open the server list:

• Smart select sits at the top, marked Recommended;
• Below it are all servers, each with its country / city, number (e.g. #001), ping and signal bars;
• Use the search box to filter by country or city; the refresh button next to it re-measures every server’s ping.

Tap a server to select it.

Switch servers

If you tap a different server while connected, the app asks you to confirm. Tap Switch and Pangolin disconnects and reconnects to the new server — expect a brief one-to-two-second gap.

When a server has problems

• With Smart select, if the current server stops responding, Pangolin switches automatically to another one and tells you “Current node unreachable — switched automatically”;
• If a server you picked yourself stops responding, you’ll see “Current node is unreachable — reconnect or switch node”;
• During brief network hiccups, the app shows “Network unstable, reconnecting…” and recovers on its own.

When to switch servers

Situation	Try this
One site won’t load but everything else does	Switch servers and try again — some sites restrict certain regions or IP addresses
Things suddenly got slow	Tap refresh in the server list and pick one with lower ping
It’s slow in the evening	Cross-border links are busiest in the evening; a lower-ping server usually helps
You need a service in a specific country	Pick a server in that country

What goes through the tunnel and what connects directly is decided by your routing rules — see Settings explained.