Google Should Stop Blocking VPNs on Android Auto – Here’s How to Fix It

I never thought I’d have to deal with this. I’ve been using Android VPNs for years, and after buying a new car, I wanted to hit the road and use some Sleep Token. As you can imagine, I ran into a problem: Android Auto blocks your connection if it detects a VPN.

This means you, or whoever is in the passenger seat, are fiddling with your phone to disconnect from your VPN and then reconnecting your Bluetooth to re-establish the connection, just to listen to music or use Google Maps.

Android Auto blocks VPNs

Android Auto will block your connection completely if it detects a VPN connection, and what little support there is in this area is just tells you to disconnect of your VPN at all. Sorry Android, but I will not sacrifice my privacy for such an idiotic and illogical reason.

This brings me to a question I haven’t really seen answered yet: “Why does Android Auto block VPNs?” It doesn’t make sense to block a VPN if you have access to your own car anyway, and a non-local IP address didn’t really matter since it connects via Bluetooth. I did see something that claimed it did be able to are because it can’t read the IP address of your car’s head unitbut that’s still nonsense, since a lot of things happen between your phone and your computer.

I suspect that Google blocks VPNs because it can’t collect data if that data is encrypted. However, I suspect the real reason is that Android just doesn’t care about VPNs.

As frustrating as this is, there is is what you can do about it.

How to Fix Android Auto Not Working with a VPN

If you’re tired of having to disconnect from your VPN every time you connect to your car, there’s only one consistent solution: split tunneling. It’s a process that routes specific apps outside of the VPN’s encrypted tunnel. It’s less than ideal from a privacy perspective, as ideally you want the connection to still be encrypted. Butthen at least you won’t be bothered by that annoying red banner on your phone anymore.

Here you see Surfshark’s Bypasser (split tunneling) menu on my Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

Setting up split tunneling for Android Auto is quite simple: just follow these three steps:

1. Go to your VPN settings and find the split tunneling settings.
2. Find Android Auto and exclude it from the VPN tunnel (you may need to allow system apps to be visible).
3. Use your phone, car, and VPN as you normally do.

VPNs That Work With Android Auto

I always have a VPN running on my phone and these three are the most reliable for Android Auto:

In short: I want my privacy

I don’t see any logical reason why Android Auto would do that. need VPN connections are blocked when connected to the phone via Bluetooth, and we shouldn’t be penalized or harassed for investing in our privacy. I’d like to see Google remove this bug altogether and allow VPN connections for Android Auto.