In this lesson for macOS, I look at the different Wi-Fi settings a Mac has including how to prioritize networks, remove networks, ask to join networks the Mac finds, and more.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
Introduction In this video, we’re going to take a look at our Wi-Fi settings on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. To view the Wi-Fi settings, what we need to do is we need to go to our network preferences. I’m going to go down to my system preferences, I click on it, and now what we need to do is we need to go to network. This is where we’re going to have all of the different networks, including Wi-Fi. Select it.
Over on the left, we have all of our different network connections. If you’re connecting via ethernet, ethernet here will have a green dot, and then you’re going to be able to make adjustments or change the settings for ethernet. Pretty much, you do not have to change any settings for ethernet, but with Wi-Fi, what you may want to do is forget a network, have your Mac ask to join networks, if you go to a lot of different coffee shops, or even turn Wi-Fi off. Well, how do you do that?
Well, the first thing you need to do is you need to select Wi-Fi here. You can see that I’m connected. When you do that, you’re going to get the status over here. If you’re having a problem with Wi-Fi, you may want to take a look at the status to see what the problem is. To turn Wi-Fi off, you click on turn Wi-Fi off. Below that, we have our network. To change the network, you click on the network here, and you can go and change the network.
Now, if it’s a hidden network, in some cases, the network is not publicized, what you can do is you can go to join other network and then type in the name of the network manually. You’ll also have to type in the password. In most cases, you’ll select a public Wi-Fi.
Below that, we have automatically join this network. Now anytime I’m on this network, what it’s going to do is it’s going to join this network automatically. Let’s say you’re at a coffee shop, and you do not want it to join that network automatically. What you can do is you can select that network, and then de-select this, and then the next time you go to that coffee shop, it will not automatically join that network. This is more for temporary networks. Below that, we also have ask to join networks. When I select this, if my Mac detects a new network, it’ll ask me if I want to join it.
At the very bottom, we have our show Wi-Fi status in the menu bar. This is a menu extra. We can see it up in the upper right-hand corner of our menu bar. When I click on this, I can see all of my different networks. I can also turn my Wi-Fi off. Again, if I have a hidden network, I can join that other network and type in the name manually. Then we also have open our network preferences, which will open up the network.
We do have more options. If I hold down the option key here– when I hold down the option key and click, you’re going to see we have other options. I can enable Wi-Fi logging, create a diagnostics report, and open wireless diagnostics. Typically, you will only use this if someone instructs you to. Now, if you do have a wireless network problem, what you may want to do is open up the wireless diagnostic. It’ll run you through some steps, and then you can hopefully see what is going on. Below that, we can also disconnect from our network. And then, we can also see all of the statistics for the network. This only shows up when we hold down the option key, and then we click on our network here.
We do have advanced settings. If we go back over to our system preferences and I click on advanced, you’re going to see all of the different networks that I’ve connected to. If I want to forget any one of these networks, all I have to do is select it and then click the minus. The next time I go there, I’m going to have to connect up to that network again because my Mac forgot about it. This can come in handy if you’re running into a problem. You might want to forget it and then rejoin it.
You can also reorder these. Now, why would you want to do that? Well, let’s say you’re in an area where you can connect up to a couple of different networks. Well, what you want to do is you want to set one of them as the priority, so it always connects to that network before any other. To do that, what we do is we drag our network up. The higher it is, the higher a priority it has. What I want to do is I want to have Noteboom here; this is my network, to have the highest priority. All I do is click and drag, put it at the top, and now it’s going to connect to Noteboom if it can.
Now, this only really comes in handy when you’re at an area where you have a couple of different networks to choose from. I will use this actually when I’m downtown Holland. There’s a brewery down there, and then there’s also a tap house, and they’re right next door to each other. The brewery has a better network. What I’ll do is I’ll go over to the tap house; maybe I’m ordering a beer, but I’ll still be able to connect up to the brewery’s network because I have it set as a higher priority.
If you do not want to remember any networks at all, you de-select this. You can also set if you want to auto-join your networks individually. If you no longer want to auto-join a specific network, uncheck it here. Then if you want to add a little security to your Mac, what you can do is you can require an administrator authorization to create computer-to-computer networks, change networks, and turn Wi-Fi on and off.
Up at the top, we do have more tabs here, but generally, these are auto-filled by the router. You don’t have to go in here and change these. All you need to do is look at Wi-Fi, and you can see all of your different networks. When you’re finished, you click on okay, and when you click on apply, and any changes you made will be applied.
Those are our Wi-Fi settings on the Mac.