Automatic WiFi Toggle for macOS

⚠️ If you would like this added to Homebrew, click the star. Homebrew won't accept until a repo has 75 stars.

• When I connect my MacBook to an ethernet network, I'd like my WiFi to automatically turn off.
• When I disconnect my MacBook from an ethernet network, I'd like my WiFi to automatically turn on.

Sounds simple and obvious, but I couldn't find a tool to do this. I did find this gist by Albert Bori. In 2024 I took Albert's basic idea and wrote wifi-toggle.sh from scratch to be as simple to use as possible.

For the last couple years there's been a steady stream of comments on the gist and a couple of forks to add features. This repo is an attempt to provide a central place to document and improve the script.

Installation

Follow the below instructions with your normal user account (‼️ it will not work if you run it as root ‼️).

1. Download wifi-toggle.sh and move it to somewhere in your path (eg. /usr/local/bin)

2. Give the script execute permissions: chmod 755 wifi-toggle.sh

3. List your network devices by running: networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder

   > networksetup -listnetworkserviceorder
   An asterisk (*) denotes that a network service is disabled.
   (1) Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot 0
   (Hardware Port: Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot 0, Device: en3)
   
   (2) Wi-Fi
   (Hardware Port: Wi-Fi, Device: en0)
   

4. You are looking for the device name of your ethernet device. In the above example that's "Thunderbolt Ethernet Slot 0".

5. Edit wifi-toggle.sh and change the ETHERNET_REGEX variable to match the name of your ethernet device. It doesn't have to be the full name of the device, but it MUST uniquely match only a single ethernet device. In this case either "Thunderbolt" or "Ethernet" would work fine. If it matches more than one device, the script will error.

6. By default the script uses the builtin Mac WiFi device Wi-Fi. If you are using another device (eg. a USB WiFi adapter) you will also need to update the WIFI_REGEX variable.

7. Run wifi-toggle.sh on and it will install a launchd service in ~/Library/LaunchAgents. From now on ...

   • If your ethernet is active, your WiFi will automatically turn off
   • If your ethernet is inactive, your WiFI will automatically turn on.

8. If you want to stop the automatic toggle, remove the launchd service by running wifi-toggle.sh off. You can enable it again anytime you like by running wifi-toggle.sh on again.

⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ If the script isn't working as expected, carefully read what it prints to the screen. It will usually show the error.

Usage

❯ wifi-toggle.sh help
Automatically toggle macOS Wi-Fi based on ethernet status (uses launchd)

Usage: wifi-toggle.sh [ on | off | help ]
   on - start automatically toggling Wi-Fi (install launchd service)
  off - stop automatically toggling Wi-Fi (uninstall launchd service)
  run - Toggle Wi-Fi status

Run the toggle manually. This is a good way to test that everything is working as expected before you enable the launchd service to autmatically toggle.

If the script thinks everything is correct, you'll see something like the below:

❯ wifi-toggle.sh run
DEBUG: get_interface(): regex 'Ethernet' -> interface 'en3'
DEBUG: get_interface(): regex '(Wi-Fi|Airport)' -> interface 'en0'
DEBUG: ethernet status: 'inactive', wifi status: 'active'
DEBUG: not toggling wifi status

If the script thinks your WiFi needs to be turned on (or off), you'll see something like this:

❯ wifi-toggle.sh run
DEBUG: get_interface(): regex 'Ethernet' -> interface 'en3'
DEBUG: get_interface(): regex '(Wi-Fi|Airport)' -> interface 'en0'
DEBUG: ethernet status: 'inactive', wifi status: 'inactive'
DEBUG: enabling wifi

Troubleshooting

• The script requires write permssion to ~/Library/LaunchAgents. If you get the below error message, you need to change the permissions so your user account can write a file into ~/Library/LaunchAgents.

  /wifi-toggle.sh: line 53: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/nz.haume.wifi-toggle.plist: Permission denied
  

• If you are somewhere without WiFi or ethernet and want to WiFi to stay disabled, you'll need to disable the script with wifi-toggle.sh off.

• If you have more than one ethernet device, make sure that ETHERNET_REGEX only matches the device you want to monitor. Currently the script doesn't support monitoring more than one ethernet device.