Getting Started with WiFi Scanner
Install
Grab the right version for your computer from the download page. It detects Windows or Mac automatically.
- Run the downloaded installer and click through the setup wizard.
- Leave Launch WiFi Scanner checked at the end to open the app right away.
- Open the downloaded
.dmg. - Drag WiFi Scanner into your Applications folder, then open it from there.
Your free trial
The moment you open WiFi Scanner for the first time, a 7-day free trial starts automatically, with no sign-up and no credit card. Every feature is unlocked during the trial, including WiFi Survey, Copilot, and the other add-ons.
A quick tour
WiFi Scanner is organized around five main tabs:
WiFi Scanner
The home tab. A live list of every WiFi network nearby, with signal strength, channel, security, and alerts for common problems, and, for any network you select, exactly what its access point is broadcasting, decoded into plain English.
LAN Scanner
The other half of the picture: every device answering on your local network (phones, printers, cameras, NAS boxes), with its address, vendor and open services. WiFi Scanner scans the air; this one scans the wire.
Copilot
Pick a goal ("my WiFi feels slow," "audit security," and more) and Copilot walks you through it, one click at a time.
Performance
Speed tests, connection summary and network diagnostics, to help answer "is it my WiFi or my internet?"
WiFi Survey
Walk a site with a floor plan loaded to build a real coverage heatmap.
Your first scan
On the Scanner tab, pick your WiFi adapter from the dropdown in the top-right, then click the toggle switch in the top-left to start scanning. Results fill in live.
On the Scanner tab, click Grant Access when macOS asks for Location permission. It's required to show real network names, and scanning starts automatically right after.
Finding the networks you care about
A busy site can show hundreds of networks. Two tools narrow the list, and they work together.
The tree on the left groups everything it heard: by band, SSID, BSSID, signal, vendor, channel, channel width, mode, security and more. Click a row to show only those networks. Click All Networks at the top to clear the filter and start again. To combine rows, hold a key while clicking (below): rows picked in the same group widen the list (this SSID or that one), and rows from different groups narrow it (this SSID and 5 GHz). Press Space to flip the row you last added into "everything except this". The arrow keys move through the tree and the results follow.
Ctrl+click adds a row to the filter, or removes it if it is already in.
⌘-click adds a row to the filter, or removes it if it is already in.
The filter box above the results takes typed expressions when you want something the
tree cannot express, for example rssi >= -70 AND band ~~ 5 for strong 5 GHz
networks only, or ssid ~~ office for every name containing "office". A band can be written
as a number: band == 5, band == 5ghz and band == "5 GHz" all mean
the same thing. Clicking rows in the tree fills this box in for you, so you can see how any filter is
written and edit it by hand.
Whatever you filter to, the rest of the app follows: the Spectrum Graphs, Signal vs. Time, Signal Summary and Alerts below the results all show the same networks, not the whole scan. Group by AP collapses every radio of one access point into a single row, and the graphs draw one line per access point to match.
Where to go next
- Want every detail on every tab and setting? See the Windows Complete User Guide or the Mac Complete User Guide.
- Not sure where to start? The Copilot tab is the fastest way in: pick the goal closest to your problem and let it guide you.
- Questions? support@accessagility.com