macOS has network diagnostic tools, but finding them requires knowing where to look. Some are hidden in System Settings. Some only exist in Terminal. And some capabilities that used to be built in are now missing entirely.

Here’s what you actually get with a stock Mac and where the gaps are.

What macOS provides

Network settings and status

System Settings shows basic connection status. You can see whether Wi-Fi or Ethernet is connected, get your IP address, and view signal strength for wireless. The Wi-Fi menu in the menu bar shows nearby networks and connection quality.

For most users, this is enough. You can tell if you’re connected, and that’s all that matters day to day.

Wireless Diagnostics

Hold Option and click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar. You’ll see an option for “Open Wireless Diagnostics.” This launches a hidden utility that can scan for networks, monitor performance, capture packets, and run diagnostic tests.

Wireless Diagnostics is genuinely powerful. The scan shows all nearby access points with their channels, signal strength, and noise levels. The performance monitor graphs throughput and signal quality over time. The sniffer captures raw packets for analysis in Wireshark.

The catch is discoverability. Most Mac users don’t know this exists because there’s no visible path to it. You have to know the Option-click trick.

Terminal commands

The command line has a full suite of network tools. Every Mac ships with ping, traceroute, netstat, nslookup, dig, whois, and nc (netcat). These are the standard Unix networking utilities that sysadmins have used for decades.

Ping checks if a host is reachable and measures round-trip time:

ping -c 5 google.com

Traceroute maps the path to a destination:

traceroute google.com

Netstat shows active connections and listening ports:

netstat -an | grep LISTEN

DNS lookups work with either nslookup or dig:

nslookup google.com
dig google.com MX

Whois retrieves domain registration information:

whois google.com

These tools are powerful and flexible. They’re also intimidating for anyone who doesn’t already know how to use them.

Network Quality tool

Apple added a command line tool called networkQuality in macOS Monterey. It measures upload and download throughput and responsiveness:

networkQuality

The output shows bandwidth in both directions plus RPM (round-trips per minute), which measures latency under load. It’s useful for testing whether your connection can handle real-time applications like video calls.

This tool is simple but effective. It’s also completely hidden unless you know to look for it.

What’s missing

Network Utility

Apple removed Network Utility in macOS Big Sur. This app bundled several diagnostic tools with a GUI: Ping, Lookup, Traceroute, Whois, Finger, Port Scan, and Netstat. None of these capabilities went away, but the graphical interface did.

The Terminal equivalents still work, but many users preferred the simplicity of typing a hostname into a text field and clicking a button. That option no longer exists in stock macOS.

Port scanning

The port scan functionality in Network Utility had no direct command line replacement. You can scan ports with nc or nmap (if you install it), but there’s nothing built in that makes this accessible to non-technical users.

Port scanning is useful for checking whether services are running on a server, testing firewall configurations, or verifying that a machine is listening on expected ports. Without a GUI tool, this requires learning command line syntax.

Visual results presentation

Terminal output is plain text. It works, but it’s not optimized for comprehension. A traceroute scrolls by line by line, and you have to read through it to spot problems. Netstat dumps a wall of connections that you have to grep and sort to make sense of.

macOS provides the raw capability but no help interpreting results. You get data, not insight.

Persistent monitoring

The built-in tools are point-in-time snapshots. You run ping, it pings, it stops. There’s no built-in way to monitor network quality over time, track changes, or alert when something degrades.

You can run ping continuously (ping google.com without the -c flag), but you have to watch it yourself. There’s no logging or notification system.

Filling the gaps

Third-party apps exist to address these shortcomings. Some focus on specific needs like Wi-Fi analysis or bandwidth monitoring. Others try to replace Network Utility entirely.

When evaluating options, think about what you actually need:

Casual troubleshooting: If you occasionally need to ping something or run a traceroute, a simple GUI wrapper around the command line tools might be enough.

Regular diagnostics: If you troubleshoot network issues frequently, you want something more polished. Clear presentation of results, ability to save outputs, maybe side-by-side comparisons.

Development and administration: If you manage servers or develop networked applications, you need the full toolkit. Ping, traceroute, DNS lookup, whois, port scanning, and netstat at minimum.

Privacy: Some diagnostic tools, especially web-based ones, route queries through their servers. If you’re scanning ports or looking up domains you’d rather keep private, a local tool that doesn’t phone home is preferable.

NetUtil as an option

We built NetUtil to restore the functionality Apple removed with Network Utility, with a modern interface that fits current macOS design.

It includes all seven classic tools: Ping, Traceroute, DNS Lookup, Netstat, Whois, Finger, and Port Scan. Everything runs locally. No data is sent to external servers, no analytics track your usage.

The app is native SwiftUI, so it feels fast and looks right on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Results display in clean tables and formatted output rather than raw terminal text.

NetUtil won’t replace Wireless Diagnostics or the networkQuality tool. Those serve different purposes. But for the everyday diagnostic tasks that Network Utility handled, it fills the gap Apple left.

Recommendations by use case

“I just want to check if a website is up”: Use ping in Terminal. It’s one command and gives you what you need immediately.

“I need to troubleshoot a slow connection”: Run a traceroute. Terminal works, but a GUI tool makes the results easier to interpret. Also try networkQuality to check your actual throughput.

“I’m having Wi-Fi problems”: Use Wireless Diagnostics (Option-click the Wi-Fi icon). The scan and performance monitor tools are excellent for diagnosing interference and connection issues.

“I need to check DNS records”: Either dig in Terminal or a GUI tool. Dig is more flexible, but the syntax takes some learning.

“I want to scan ports on a server”: You’ll need a third-party tool. There’s no reasonable built-in option for this.

“I want all of the above in one place”: That’s what Network Utility provided, and it’s what NetUtil (and similar apps) restore.

The state of things

macOS has network diagnostic capabilities, but Apple doesn’t make them easy to find or use. The best tools are hidden behind Terminal commands or obscure Option-click menus. The one app that made these accessible to everyone was removed without replacement.

Power users can work around this. They know the commands, they’re comfortable in Terminal, they don’t need GUI tools. But not everyone who needs network diagnostics is a power user, and Apple’s current approach leaves those people without good options.

Third-party developers have stepped in to fill the gap. That’s the Mac ecosystem working as intended. Apple provides the foundation, and others build on top of it when Apple won’t or can’t. Network Utility is gone, but the need it served remains.