How to Change Your Router's DNS (Every Device at Once)

Why change DNS at the router

Changing DNS on a single device only affects that device. Changing it at the router affects every device that connects — phones, laptops, tablets, smart TVs, game consoles, and anything else on the network — without configuring each one individually. It’s also the only practical way to apply a resolver to devices that don’t have easy DNS settings, like some streaming boxes or IoT gadgets.

The tradeoff is that router-level DNS is a shared setting: everyone on the network gets the same resolver, and anyone with the admin password can change it back. For a single device you control closely, the per-device guides can be a better fit; for a whole household or office, the router is usually the more convenient choice. A faster resolver shortens the lookup delay before a page starts loading on every device — it does not change your actual internet or download speed.

Before you start, run the DNS speed test on a device connected to this network to see which resolver responds fastest from your connection, then use its addresses in the steps above. You can also compare resolvers on the public DNS servers page if you care about privacy or filtering as well as speed.

Brand differences

The steps above are generic because router admin interfaces vary a lot by brand and even by firmware version:

• Admin address. Most consumer routers use 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1, but some ISP-supplied routers use 192.168.1.254, 10.0.0.1, or a custom address. Check the router’s label, or look up the “Default Gateway” in your device’s network settings.
• Menu labels. DNS may appear under Internet, WAN, Setup → Network, Advanced, or DHCP Server depending on the brand. TP-Link and Netgear tend to keep it under Internet/WAN settings; some ASUS and mesh systems (Google Wifi, eero, Orbi) hide it under an “Advanced” or “DNS” section in their app instead of a browser page.
• App-only routers. Mesh systems like Google Wifi/Nest Wifi, eero, and some ISP-provided routers are configured entirely through a phone app rather than a browser admin page — look for a Network Settings or DNS option there.
• Two DNS layers. A few routers let you set DNS separately for the WAN (what the router itself uses) and for DHCP (what it hands out to devices). If you only see a speed improvement on the router itself, check whether the DHCP/LAN side also needs the same addresses.

When your ISP router won’t let you change DNS

Some ISP-provided or carrier-locked routers hide, gray out, or silently ignore the DNS field, forcing all traffic through the provider’s own resolver. If that happens:

• Check whether the router has a “bridge mode” that lets you put your own router behind it — the ISP box then just passes the connection through.
• Fall back to setting DNS on individual devices instead: see the guides for Windows, or your device’s own network settings.
• Some ISPs also let you change DNS through their account portal or companion app rather than the router’s local admin page — worth checking if the on-device field is locked.

Enabling encrypted DNS (DoH/DoT) at the router

A growing number of routers — mainly running third-party firmware like OpenWrt or newer firmware from brands such as ASUS, GL.iNet, and pfSense/OPNsense — support DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) or DNS-over-TLS (DoT) natively, encrypting every device’s lookups at the router itself rather than needing to configure it per device. If your router has this option, look for it under Advanced DNS, DoH, or DNS Privacy, and point it at your chosen resolver’s DoH/DoT endpoint (for example, Cloudflare’s DoH endpoint is https://cloudflare-dns.com/dns-query and its DoT hostname is 1dot1dot1dot1.cloudflare-dns.com).

Most stock consumer router firmware does not expose this option yet. If yours doesn’t, plain DNS at the router is still worth doing — you can add encryption per device later using the platform-specific guides.

Verify it worked

On any device connected to the network, open a terminal and check which DNS server it’s using. On Windows:

ipconfig /all

On macOS or Linux:

scutil --dns

resolvectl status

Look for the DNS server address matching what you entered on the router — this confirms devices are inheriting it via DHCP rather than falling back to a manually configured one. Then reload this site and run the DNS speed test again from a couple of different devices; your new resolver should show up as the one in use, and ideally the fastest.

Troubleshooting

• Devices still show the old DNS after saving. Router-level DNS changes usually only apply to new DHCP leases. Reboot the device, or manually disconnect and reconnect to Wi-Fi, to force it to request a fresh lease.
• The router itself doesn’t seem to use the new DNS. Some routers need a full reboot (not just “save”) for WAN-side DNS changes to take effect.
• A device shows a different DNS than the router. Check whether that device has its own manual DNS set (see the per-device guides) — a device-level setting always overrides what the router hands out.
• Some sites won’t load after the change. Revert to automatic/ISP DNS on the router and try again with a different resolver from the public DNS servers page. Occasional site breakage is rarely a DNS problem specifically.
• Admin panel won’t load. Confirm you’re connected to this router’s network (not a guest network or a different Wi-Fi), and double-check the address on the router’s label.

Revert to your old settings

Return to the same DNS field in the router admin panel and switch it back to Automatic or Obtain DNS automatically, then save and reboot the router if needed. This restores your ISP’s default DNS for every device on the network. Individual devices with their own manual DNS set will keep using that until you revert them separately.