Configuring your mac to display the wifi name on the menu bar

If you find yourself wondering how to have the name of the network you're connected to on your menu bar, then follow these instructions.

We'll be using an application called hammerspoon, which allows your computer to run lua scripts in the background!

• Go to hammerspoon's github releases and install the latest one. You'll find something like this:

• Click the first choice, Hammerspoon-0.9.73.zip

• Once downloaded, unarchive the zip to your Downloads
  

• Drag the Hammerspoon application to your Applications

• Once in applications, open Hammerspoon with spotlight (press command and space, and type in Hammerspoon, then press enter)

• Once Hammerspoon has been opened for the first time, you should see a security prompt:
  

• Click Open

• Check Launch Hammerspoon at login

• Great, now we can add our init script!

• Open your terminal and enter, touch ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua,

• Now open init.lua, (located at ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua)

• Paste in the following code:
  

wifiMenu = hs.menubar.newWithPriority(2147483645)
wifiMenu:setTitle(hs.wifi.currentNetwork())

wifiWatcher = nil

function ssidChanged()
    local wifiName = hs.wifi.currentNetwork()
    if wifiName then
        wifiMenu:setTitle(wifiName)
    else
        wifiMenu:setTitle("Wifi OFF")
    end
end

wifiWatcher = hs.wifi.watcher.new(ssidChanged):start()

• Quit hammerspoon using cmd+q, (not just pressing the red x)
• Reopen hammerspoon

And voila! We now have the name of our network on our menu bar!

Comments

[Shota Senga]

I've found an issue that shows nothing if the computer was offline at startup. So I modified it like:

wifiNameApp:setTitle(hs.wifi.currentNetwork() or "Offline")   

Thanks for sharing. It's very useful!

[Matt Crowder]

Thanks! I’ll update it when I get a chance

[Jeroen S.]

Hope someone can help me out. I am on SONOMA and SSID is not working anymore with the above code. Always shows "Wifi OFF", even when I am on WiFi.

Used this code:

wifiMenu = hs.menubar.newWithPriority(2147483645)
wifiMenu:setTitle(hs.wifi.currentNetwork())

wifiWatcher = nil

function ssidChanged()
local wifiName = hs.wifi.currentNetwork()
if wifiName then
wifiMenu:setTitle(wifiName)
else
wifiMenu:setTitle("Wifi OFF")
end
end

wifiWatcher = hs.wifi.watcher.new(ssidChanged):start()