How to Monitor Network Traffic. This wikiHow teaches you how to see a list of IP addresses which are accessing your router. You can do this on both Windows and Mac computers by accessing your Internet router's page, while iPhone. Monitoring network activity isn't such a difficult job because Windows already has a dedicated tool to show you some stats, but things can get a lot easier.

Network Traffic Monitoring Tools For Mac
Network Traffic Tool For Mac

Active3 years, 8 months ago

Is there a good bit of software on Mac OS X that I can use to monitor incoming and outgoing network activity? Nothing too geeky, I just want something simple to use.

I'm on version 10.6 (Snow Leopard) if that helps.

Peter Mortensen

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xentekxentek

closed as off-topic by Journeyman Geek♦Oct 1 '15 at 4:53

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8 Answers

Wireshark is widely acknowledged as one of the best network monitor tools available. Distributions are available for OS X.

If you prefer something more simplistic you can use iStatMenus to show incoming / outgoing network traffic speeds.

For the person who doesn't want to install anything you can also use tcpdump in Terminal.

Josh KJosh K

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Also check out nettop, a little command line gem that ships with Mac OS.

SengMingSengMing

Also look at MenuMeters. I tried iStat Menus & MenuMeters and preferred MM. Not saying one is better; just that there are a couple of choices.

A working version of MenuMeters for El Capitan can be found here.

JRobertJRobert

LittleSnitch! - 30$

It is mainly a software Firewall that may help you to prevent some apps to access the internet. It also has a nice menubar icon with live network usage. Mouseover on it and it displays which app is communicating with which server or ip address.

I have LittleSnitch and iStat Menus installed. Both are complementary.

ArkoArko

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Commercial (16$) iStat Pro and iStat Menus (dashboard widget and menu bar item respectively) are great for monitoring everything from network activity to CPU temperatures.

And of course there's the network tab of Activity Monitor.

sorin

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Kevin YapKevin Yap

Network Logger for Mac OS X from Group Mind does a great job of tracking network traffic, downtime (in real time, with timed log), and lots of easy-to-understand stuff. I'm not technical and all I really wanted was to track when my ISP connection went down, and for how long it stayed down. Mac's little Network Utility app would ping endlessly but wouldn't give me a chronological log. Network Logger did, and was easy for a novice to understand.

Cost me $5.99 from the App Store.

Community♦

user185006user185006

/System/Library/CoreServices/Network Diagnostics Simple green/red LEDs for various layers. I slide it over to the right side of the screen until just the lights show.

CJ1CJ1

Network Traffic Monitoring Tools For Mac

I've just installed Net Monitor and Net Monitor Sidekick and so far I like them. Nothing you can't get with other tools, but a nice summary display. Each is $10 after a 30 day eval, so YMMV, but I thought I'd mention them.

FredFred

closed as off-topic by Journeyman Geek♦Oct 1 '15 at 4:53

8 Answers

Network Traffic Monitoring Tools For Mac

Network Traffic Tool For Mac

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