Exploring Your Mac's Wi-Fi Settings

Learn how to use the Wi-Fi settings in macOS Ventura. You can pick the network you wish to join, customize it and use new options like Low Data Mode.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's look at the Wi-Fi settings in macOS Ventura. 
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Now of course macOS Ventura completely overhauled System Preferences. It is now System Settings. One of the areas where I think there's been some great improvement is in Wi-Fi Settings. Let's take a look. So if I go into System Settings here I can see that Wi-Fi Settings are right here at the top. They're their own category. You can still go to the Network and then see all of your different network options and then go to Wi-Fi. But you could also just go straight to Wi-Fi. It takes you to the same place. You could also access your Wi-Fi Settings just as before either in Control Center, under Wi-Fi like on the little reveal button there and you get more information, or you can just go into the Wi-Fi Status Menu right there. If you don't have it there, I'll drag mine out, you can simply go into Control Center and then Drag Wi-Fi up into the Status Menu there and then you can click on it and you get access to the On/Off switch for Wi-Fi. You can switch networks and you can go to Wi-Fi Settings in yet another way to get to the same location. So let's look at these settings here. 
Everything is now in a list. At the top you've got your ON/Off switch and you can see the network you're currently connected to. You also see the little padlock there if the network is secure. Of course you should definitely see that on any network that you want to use and you should see it on just about any other network today. You'll see the signal strength there as well. Remember with Wi-Fi the signal strength is just the strength of the signal from your Mac to the Wi-Fi Router. It has nothing to do with how fast or the quality of your actual internet connection. That's between the Router and the internet itself. 
Now you can dig further into the details with the Details Button. This gives you access to all the information that we could see before back in System Preferences. So under the top category you're going to see some of the Main Settings that most people need to deal with. You've got Automatically Join this Network. If this is your home network or one you use regularly like one at work, then of course you should have this checked and your Mac would automatically join this network when it is available. You also have a new Low Data Mode option. So what does low data mode do? So Apple actually has a page on this though the haven't updated it to include the Mac yet. So here you can see exactly what to expect when using Low Data Mode over Wi-Fi. The variety of different things that happen. For instance, the quality of streaming content might be reduced. iCloud Photos pauses updates. Articles perfecting and news is turned On. Even a slower video bit rate for FaceTime. So you can checkout this page if you want to know the details. But normally you wouldn't want this turned on for your home network or at work. But perhaps if you're using a network that has limited bandwidth. Lots of places around the world still have a bandwidth limit for even home users so you may want to have that turned On in some cases but not for others. This allows you to customize this on a per network basis. 
Now there's also the option here for Limit IP Address Tracking. This is also known as Private Relay and it's a feature of an iCloud Plus subscription. So what this switch does is this allows you to specify this on a per network basis. Here you'll also see your IP Address and your Router's IP Address which is really handy. In the past we could always see our local IP address. That's just the address for our computer on our local local network. It's not typically what you would be looking for when you want to know your IP Address. Your IP Address is the one your Router is using to connect to the rest of the internet. In certain security situations, maybe you want to log onto a special server and they need to know your internet IP Address, it's the Router IP Address that you would want. 
Now the rest of this here allows you to setup all of the details. Most people don't need to deal with this. But if you do need to go in and say change your DNS you can go and do it here. Now underneath your current network you've got Personal Hotspots. So in this case it sees my iPhone 13 Pro and I can connect to that if I want. Then under that is Known Networks. Now these aren't all of the known networks. But just the networks that it can see right now. You'll see a checkmark next to the one you're currently connected to. But you'll also see other ones listed that you're not connected to and you'll have the Connect button so you can switch to that network. You'll also have a More Information button here to the right of each one of these. So you can click on this, and this is where you can change the Auto Join Setting for this network. Now you can see one of the options here is to Copy Password. This is really handy because if you forget the password to a network you can Copy it and now you can Paste it into a document or maybe a text message or something like that. So if a friend comes over to visit and you want to give him the Wi-Fi password you can Copy it like that and share it with them. 
You can get to Network Settings for this network even though you're not connected to it. This is where I can delete this network and its password and I won't have that anymore under Known Networks. It would now be under Other Networks. Other Networks lists all the other networks that your Mac can currently see so they are nearby but you either don't have their password to them or you've never connected to these networks. 
Now you may ask well what about my known networks, the ones I've used before, that don't happen to be nearby. How can I get to those? After all some of us like to go in and delete them. Say you stayed at a hotel for a few days. You get home and you decide you want to go in and delete that network from your list. It won't be shown here because you are nowhere near that Wi-Fi network anymore. Well that can be found here at the bottom. There's an Advanced Button here. Click that and then that has a list of all of your known networks. You can use the same information button over here to switch On and Off Auto Join. You could also Copy the password from these networks as well and then Paste it somewhere if you want to see it or Paste it into a text message to send to somebody else. Like if somebody is staying at your house while you're away and they want to know the password and you can't remember what it is. You could get it this way. And you can Remove from the list. If you are wondering if you can bulk remove from the list, you certainly can. You can select one and then Command Click to select the second or select one and Shift Click to select a range. Click on any of these and say Remove From List and you'll see it allows you to remove all of the networks that are selected. 
You also have some other settings up here. This is an Administrator Account. I could set whether or not authorization is needed to change networks or turn Wi-Fi On or Off. So you can use that to prevent somebody else on say a standard account from switching Off Wi-Fi or switching to another network. There is Show Legacy networks and Options will show older Wi-Fi networks that may not be supported. But also from what I've read it will show an option that doesn't seem to be here anymore. That's to create your own Wi-Fi network on your Mac. This is typically done if you have an ethernet connection to the internet and you want to take your Mac and turn it into a Wi-Fi Hotspot for other devices to join. That's not normally here but if you switch this On that's one of those Legacy Options that can be used.
Now back here above the Advanced button there are two other options here we should look at. One is Ask To Join Networks. So on the Mac you just have a simple switch On or Off. There is no option anymore for simply automatically joining some network you've never heard of before. It won't do that. Either it is not going to ask to join other networks at all, you have to go in here and actually select a new network or if you turn it On and it can't find one of your networks it will ask you if it's okay to join one that it finds. But neither of those will make you automatically join in an unsafe network. You have a separate switch here for the same thing but for joining iPhone Personal Hotspots. 
Now one of the things that is missing here is the ability to set the prescidence for the networks. So if I wanted to change the order at which it prefers to join networks I can't do it. So it seems like it has just got to be random or it is just the order in which you joined. But in fact its not. It's is actually very specific. It's not just something you control manually. Apple actually has a detailed page about it right here. What it is doing is creating behind the scenes point system. So first it is going to look at your known networks and score them based on your past actions. The biggest one being if you manually switch to a network. So if you decide to pick a network it is going to give that network some points and it is going to increase its score. So if it keeps picking the wrong network you manually switch to the one you want, sooner or later, probably within just a few tries, it will get that you want one network over the other and pick that one itself. 
I want to end with one tip here. Just like before if you have Wi-Fi here in the Menu Bar you could also hold the Option key down and click it and you get so much more. You can create diagnostic reports, open wireless diagnostics here, and you can get lots of information about your local Wi-Fi network including lots of status and signal strength information as well. So I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 6 Responses to “Exploring Your Mac's Wi-Fi Settings”

Eric

2 years ago

I think that it is possible to Set Service Order in the Network part of System Settings. This get shown in a menu if the ...> button is clicked on the window. Maybe this is just for connection types rather than a choice of wi-fi possibilities.

Gary Rosenzweig

Eric: Right, for connection types, not which Wi-Fi network is preferred over another.

nick

Thanks as usual Gary. Somewhat related topic, given iCloud, is there still a need/use for creating a shared network to allow other family users to access files on my computer, and vice-versa? I remember doing this years ago using the Network in the Finder side bar, and turning on the Share feature. I have one item showing within the Network folder in Finder, and I'm not even sure what it is. Thx

Nick: I certainly find myself dealing with sharing files locally much less than before. iCloud for myself and AIrDrop between two people seems to cover so many uses cases previously covered by old-fashioned "file sharing."

John

Gary, thanks a lot for the great video! Just one point...I have older macOS (Monterey) and I can see "Limit IP address Tracking" option available for me. And, so it seems its just normal feature as I don't have any iCloud+ subscription etc. I am not sure if I am right for newer macOS too (Ventura) which I hope it shouldn't become suddenly premium feature which was already freely available.

John: This is a per-network switch for Private Relay. If you don't have Private Relay, it wouldn't be on for anything, but you can still control the switch so if you do turn it on in the future then it will work or not work for that network. See https://support.apple.com//HT212614

Comments Closed.

Exploring Your Mac's Wi-Fi Settings

Comments: 6 Responses to “Exploring Your Mac's Wi-Fi Settings”

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