ProxyWorkz User Manual

Plain-language guide to running ProxyWorkz day-to-day. This is the same content served inside the app itself (sidebar → User Manual) — rendered here so you can check it before you buy.

1. Getting started

Installing

Run the installer and follow the prompts. It installs to ProgramData\ProxyWorkz (a machine-wide location, not tied to one Windows user account) and creates a Start Menu / Desktop shortcut. No other setup is needed — the app runs itself once installed.

First launch and activation

The first time ProxyWorkz opens, it asks for a license key and the email it was issued to. Enter both and click Activate. From then on the app checks this automatically every time it starts — you won't be asked again unless the license itself changes (revoked, expired, moved to a new machine).

Activation needs an internet connection on your normal network — it's a one-time check against ProxyWorkz's licensing server, not something the dongles/phones you're about to configure need to be involved in.

The app window and the tray icon

Once running, ProxyWorkz behaves like a normal desktop app with one important difference: closing the window does not stop the app. Closing the window (the X button) just hides it — the proxies you've already set up keep running in the background. This is deliberate: ProxyWorkz's whole job is to keep working even when you're not looking at the dashboard.

You'll always find it in the Windows system tray (the icons near the clock, click the ^ arrow if it's hidden there). Right-click it for:

Open ProxyWorkz — brings the dashboard window back. Left-clicking the icon does the same thing.
Start — starts dongle monitoring and all proxy listeners. Only does anything if it isn't already running (see below).
Stop — pauses dongle monitoring and closes every proxy listener, without quitting the app. Use this for troubleshooting ("something's wrong, pause everything") — the window and tray icon stay open, and clicking Start brings it straight back.
Exit — the only action that fully quits ProxyWorkz (window, tray icon, and every proxy listener). If you want the app completely off, this is the one to use, not just closing the window.

The tray icon itself also tells you the state at a glance: a small green dot on the icon means proxy services are running, grey means they're stopped.

2. Connecting your hardware

ProxyWorkz supports two kinds of hardware, and both are detected automatically — there's no "Add a proxy" button to find. Plug something in correctly and it appears in the Dashboard and Proxy List within a few seconds.

4G USB dongles (Huawei HiLink)

Plug the dongle into a USB port (a powered USB hub is recommended if you're running several at once) and power it on. Once Windows finishes installing its own drivers for it (only happens once per dongle, the first time it's ever plugged into this PC), ProxyWorkz picks it up on its next status check — no configuration needed on the dongle itself.

That one-time driver install also brings in a separate Windows service ("Mobile Broadband HL Service") that ProxyWorkz doesn't need and that can compete with it for the same dongle. The installer offers to disable it automatically; if you skipped that step, ProxyWorkz's own diagnostics will flag it, and support can walk you through the one-time fix (needs a Windows admin approval prompt).

Android phones (USB tethering)

Phones need a one-time pairing step first, because Android's USB debugging has to explicitly trust this PC before ProxyWorkz can control anything on it. This step trips people up because a phone that isn't paired correctly stays completely silent about it — it just never shows up, with no error anywhere to explain why.

Use a data-capable USB cable. Many phone cables — especially spares and ones bundled purely for charging — carry power but not data. A charge-only cable will charge the phone perfectly normally while producing nothing at all in ProxyWorkz: no "Allow USB debugging?" popup, no device detected, nothing in the Proxy List. It looks exactly like a pairing mistake but isn't one. If the popup in step 6 below never appears no matter how carefully you follow the steps, try a different cable — ideally the one that came in the box with the phone — before troubleshooting anything else.

Steps, in this exact order:

On the phone: Settings → About phone → tap "Build number" 7 times to unlock Developer options (skip if already done).
Settings → System → Developer options → USB debugging → ON.
Unplug the USB cable from the PC if it's already connected.
Unlock the phone's screen and leave it unlocked/on.
Plug the cable back in with the phone unlocked.
Watch the phone screen — a popup will ask "Allow USB debugging?" with a computer fingerprint. Tick "Always allow from this computer" and tap Allow.

Why the order matters: step 6's popup only appears if the phone's screen is unlocked at the exact moment the cable is plugged in. If the phone was locked when plugged in, the prompt can silently fail to appear at all — that's the single most common cause of "the app doesn't see my phone."

Recommended: turn the phone's screen lock off entirely (Settings → Security → Screen lock → None) before pairing, not just as a fallback. This reliably makes the "Allow USB debugging?" popup appear, and it also matters afterward — ProxyWorkz turns the phone's screen off automatically once it's running (see below), and a phone that's both screen-off and locked would block any future re-pairing (a factory reset, "Revoke USB debugging authorisations", or moving it to a new PC) until someone physically unlocks it first. A dedicated proxy phone that never doubles as a personal phone doesn't need a lock screen at all.

Note: the phone does NOT need to be in USB tethering mode for the pairing steps above — File Transfer (MTP) mode is fine for those. ProxyWorkz turns tethering on and off by itself from then on, for a phone it already knows about. But for a brand-new phone's very first detection, USB tethering does need to be turned on manually once (Settings → Network & internet → Hotspot & tethering → USB tethering) — that's what creates the Windows network adapter ProxyWorkz uses to spot the phone for the first time and add it to the Proxy List. Once it's been added, you never need to touch that toggle again.

If a step doesn't behave as described

No "Allow USB debugging?" popup appears at all, even with the screen unlocked — almost always a charge-only cable (see above). Try a different one before anything else.
The popup appears then disappears before you can tap it — it timed out. Unplug, make sure the screen is unlocked, plug back in, and respond to it immediately this time.
You tapped Allow, but the phone still never appears anywhere in ProxyWorkz — for a phone ProxyWorkz has never seen before, turn on USB tethering manually once (see the note above) — that's what's missing on a first-time phone, not a pairing problem. For a phone that's worked before, unplug and replug the cable once instead; that's enough to make ProxyWorkz re-check for it. If it still doesn't show up either way, re-open Developer options and confirm USB debugging is still ON — some phones silently turn it back off after a reboot or an update.
The phone shows up but sits on "Registering" for more than about 30 seconds — a phone that was just plugged in, or a USB hub that was just powered on, needs a short moment to finish negotiating over USB; this is normal for the first 15–30 seconds. If it never resolves past that, unplug and replug it once.

Once paired, ProxyWorkz manages the phone by itself

After pairing, ProxyWorkz takes over the phone's relevant settings automatically, every time it checks the phone's status — not just once:

Wi-Fi is turned off automatically. This matters a lot: USB tethering does not require mobile data specifically — if the phone's Wi-Fi is on and connected to anything, tethering will happily share that connection instead, with zero visible difference from genuine mobile data. A phone with no SIM at all can still "work" as a tether source this way, silently defeating the entire point of using it. ProxyWorkz checks this on every poll and switches Wi-Fi back off the moment it reconnects (which does happen on its own sometimes).
USB tethering is turned on automatically if it isn't already.
The screen is turned off automatically, to save power on a phone that's just sitting plugged in long-term. This doesn't affect adb access, tethering, or Wi-Fi state at all.

This also means a full disconnect (unplug/replug, or a USB hub losing power) fixes itself — the next time ProxyWorkz sees the phone again, it reapplies all three settings the same way. Nothing needs redoing by hand, as long as USB debugging is still authorized for this PC.

The one thing ProxyWorkz can't fix: a genuinely dead SIM (no signal, no data plan, out of coverage). Check the phone's own status bar for a signal icon if a phone's proxy stops returning results — "connected to Wi-Fi" and "has a working SIM" are different things, and only the second one actually matters here.

3. The Dashboard

The landing page after activation. At a glance:

Modems / Online chips (top right) — total count and how many are currently reachable.
Metric cards — active proxy count, overall health percentage (with a pill showing "Fully Operational" or how many are down), total bandwidth, and uptime.
Traffic chart, with a range selector above it: Hour / Day / Month / Full History. Download is plotted above the centre line, Upload below it (mirrored), with gridlines labelled in whatever unit fits the data (KB/MB/GB). The dashed red line marks the busiest 5% of the visible period — a "this is genuinely heavy load, not a blip" marker. Hover anywhere on the chart for exact figures at that point in time. Below the chart, a small table shows Now/Average/Max/Total for both directions.
Traffic by proxy and Quota — per-proxy breakdown and data allowance meters (see §5).
Rotate All Eligible IPs / Reboot All Modems — bulk actions across every dongle at once (skips phones and anything mid-rotation already).

If nothing shows up here, see §2 — it means nothing's been detected yet.

4. The Proxy List

One row per dongle, phone, or provider proxy. Filter by type (All / Phones / Dongles / Providers) or search by tag, IP, or host at the top; toggle Comfortable/Compact density for how much fits on screen.

Columns: Type, Port #, Tag/Name, Hardware Status, Carrier & Signal, Current IP, Session Uptime, Rotation Logic, and a row of quick actions.

Type badge letters (the coloured letter at the start of each row):

Letter	Meaning
P	Android phone (USB tethering)
D	USB dongle — Huawei HiLink and ZTE alike; the letter doesn't distinguish vendor, only the Tag/Name you give it does
E	External/provider proxy — a purchased 4G proxy chained through ProxyWorkz, not physical hardware in this PC

Status meanings (the coloured pill in Hardware Status):

Status	Meaning
Online	Working normally
Rotating	An IP rotation is in progress right now
Restricted	Reachable, but something's constrained (e.g. a carrier walled garden)
Offline	Not currently reachable
Error	A real fault — check Diagnostics (the gear icon)
Unplugged	Was configured before, not currently connected
Registering	Just detected, still being set up
Proxy Port Busy	The modem's fine, but something else on this PC has already grabbed its SOCKS/HTTP port
Allowance Reached	Deliberately stopped — this proxy's data allowance threshold was hit (see §5, §7)

Quick actions, left to right:

⟳ Rotate IP — trigger a rotation now, outside its normal schedule.
🌐 Test real internet — actively checks whether this proxy reaches the open internet, as opposed to a carrier walled garden that merely looks connected.
⏓ Reset modem — power-cycles the modem in software, with a live log popout of what's happening.
📋 Copy Credentials
✉ SMS & SIM Utilities — send an SMS from this modem's own number (top-ups, carrier keywords) and see recent history. Not available for Android phones — disabled for compliance and safety reasons, to be resolved in a later patch.
# USSD Commands — send a USSD code (e.g. a balance check) and see the carrier's raw response. Not available for Android phones — same compliance/safety hold as SMS above.
GB Data Allowance — set/view this proxy's plan size and usage (§5).
📌 IP Rotation History — a timestamped log of every IP this proxy has had.
⚙ Config — opens the full settings drawer (§5).

5. Configuring a proxy (the drawer)

Click the gear icon on any row to open its settings drawer.

General — Proxy Name (and Phone Name, for Android phones — an editable label distinct from the tag).
Hardware Info — read-only details about the physical device.
Rotation Settings — three modes:
Time-Based — rotate every N minutes.
Data-Based — rotate every N MB transferred.
On-Demand (API) — rotate only when triggered externally, via the Webhook URL shown here (copy it into whatever external tool is triggering rotations).
Sticky IP (Keep Alive) — keep the same IP across reconnects where possible, instead of always getting a fresh one.
Authentication & Protocols — the HTTP and SOCKS5 port numbers, username/password for this proxy, an IP whitelist, and ready-to-copy LAN URLs in two formats (a plain URL, and a separate ip:port:user:pass form some external scraper/proxy-list tools expect instead).
Advanced — Passive OS Spoofing, and "Release port if unplugged" (frees this dongle's port pair for reuse by the next new dongle once it's confirmed gone — off by default, so replacing a faulty unit doesn't silently change which port an external app should be using unless you've opted into that).
Diagnostics — live fault detection with a plain-language summary and suggested fix when something's wrong, plus the individual checks behind it.

Data allowance (the GB quick-action, not the drawer) is where you set a SIM's plan size in GB. Once set, ProxyWorkz tracks estimated remaining data from the last time you reset the usage counter — reset it whenever the SIM's plan actually renews, so the tracker starts counting from the right point. See §7 for what happens when it's used up.

6. Settings page

Proxy Behavior

Auto-stop proxy at allowance — for any proxy with a data allowance set, automatically stops just that proxy's listeners once usage crosses this percentage (default 95%). This is continuously re-checked — raising the allowance or resetting usage resumes it automatically, no manual restart needed. See §7.
Low-data warning threshold — a lower percentage (default 80%) that turns the allowance meters amber before the hard-stop above turns them red. Must be lower than the auto-stop percentage.
Auto-start proxy services on launch — ON by default: dongle monitoring and every proxy listener start the moment the app opens. Turn this OFF if you'd rather the app open headless and review what's plugged in before starting anything (Start it manually from the tray or dashboard when ready).
Open window automatically on launch — OFF by default: the app starts straight to the tray, and you open the dashboard yourself when you actually need it. Turn this ON to have the window pop open every time the app launches instead.

There's no automatic reset-on-failure — a proxy that's genuinely stuck needs a manual Reset (Proxy List's Quick Actions, or the Config drawer) rather than the app trying to guess when to power-cycle real hardware on its own.

Data Improvement

Share device compatibility data — ON by default. Once a day, if any of your connected phones or dongles are confirmed working and aren't already known to us, ProxyWorkz sends only:
Device type (phone or USB dongle)
Make and model
Firmware version (dongles) or Android version (phones)

That's it. Never sent: your phone number, any SMS or USSD content, IMEI, SIM/ICCID, adb serial numbers, or anything about your account or proxy traffic. This exists purely to help us (and every other customer) get automatic support for compatible devices faster in future updates — it has zero effect on how your proxies work either way, and you can turn it OFF any time with no downside.

Network

Suppress browser captive-portal popups — some carriers redirect a Windows connectivity check in a way that makes Windows think a dongle/phone is a Wi-Fi hotspot needing sign-in, popping a "sign in to network" page in your browser. This turns that off. Trade-off: this is machine-wide, not specific to ProxyWorkz's dongles — while ON, Windows also stops detecting real captive portals (hotel/airport/coffee-shop Wi-Fi that genuinely needs a login page); you'd just see "no internet" with no prompt and have to open a browser yourself to reach the login screen. Reversible any time (needs a one-time admin approval either direction) — leave it OFF unless the popups are actually a problem for you.

Display

Table density and theme — dark mode is currently the only theme.

7. What happens when a SIM's data runs out

If you've set a data allowance for a proxy (§5) and the auto-stop setting is on (§6, on by default):

As usage climbs past the low-data warning percentage, that proxy's allowance meter turns amber on the Dashboard and Proxy List.
Once usage crosses the auto-stop percentage, ProxyWorkz closes that proxy's SOCKS5/HTTP listeners on its own. The row shows Allowance Reached instead of Online — this is a deliberate, intentional stop, not a fault, so it won't trigger diagnostics or a reset.
Dongle monitoring and rotation keep running as normal underneath — ProxyWorkz doesn't lose track of the proxy, it just isn't serving traffic through it anymore.
The moment usage drops back under the threshold (a plan renewal you reset the usage counter for, or you raise the allowance), the very next check re-enables it automatically. No manual restart needed.

8. Troubleshooting quick reference

A phone never shows up after plugging it in, and no "Allow USB debugging?" popup ever appeared: Try a different USB cable first — a charge-only cable produces exactly this symptom. Otherwise re-check the pairing steps in §2; the popup is most often missed because the screen was locked at the moment of plugging in.
A dongle/phone shows "Proxy Port Busy": Something else on this PC already has that port. Check what, or change the proxy's ports in its drawer.
A proxy shows "Restricted": Reachable but constrained — often a carrier walled garden (out of credit, needs a top-up). Use "Test real internet" to confirm.
A proxy shows "Allowance Reached": Working as designed — see §7.
A phone appears to work but every request comes back as your own normal internet connection: The phone's Wi-Fi reconnected and is being used instead of mobile data. ProxyWorkz corrects this automatically within seconds of the next check, but check the phone's Wi-Fi state if it persists.
Windows keeps popping a "sign in to network" page for a dongle/phone: See the Network setting in §6.