Glance, don’t guess.
Open the menu and see your network, signal strength, internet reachability, and a connection-quality grade — all in one place. No more switching to the WiFi menu just to see if you’re still connected.
macOS quietly drops your WiFi.
SignalDrop doesn’t.
A menu-bar app that notifies you the moment your connection changes — with downtime duration, signal-weakness warnings, and ISP-grade reliability reports you can hand straight to support.
macOS 13 Ventura or later · Universal binary (Apple Silicon + Intel)
The problem
macOS hides WiFi failures behind an icon that lies.
Your WiFi drops. The icon changes to empty bars — no notification, no sound, no banner. You don’t notice until your video call freezes, your upload fails, or your terminal hangs. Minutes of dead-air later you reach for the WiFi menu and realize the connection died ten minutes ago.
SignalDrop is the missing notification. Built on Apple’s CoreWLAN framework, it registers for kernel-level WiFi events — the OS pushes a notification to your app the instant the link state changes, so you don’t pay the cost of finding out the slow way.
What it does
Live status, instant alerts, real receipts for your ISP.
Instant disconnect alerts
The moment your WiFi drops, you get a native macOS notification with the SSID and (on reconnect) the exact downtime duration.
Signal-weakness warnings
SignalDrop watches RSSI and flags you at −75 dBm — so you can move closer to the router before the connection gives up.
Connection quality grade
A through F based on the last 24 hours of stability, with per-network uptime tracking for every WiFi you connect to.
ISP-ready troubleshooting reports
One-click export of an outage timeline with timestamps and durations — paste it into your ISP chat and watch them stop blaming your router.
Caught early, not after the call freezes.
The −75 dBm warning fires before drops happen, with hysteresis to avoid flapping notifications. You get one signal-weak banner — not twenty.
Logged. Exported. Defensible.
Every WiFi event lands in a local SQLite database. CSV export and a paste-ready ISP receipt give you the leverage you need with support.
Per-network reliability.
Café WiFi flaky? Home network solid? SignalDrop tracks uptime and disconnect counts per SSID — see which networks deserve trust.
Privacy
Nothing leaves your Mac.
SignalDrop makes zero network requests. No analytics, no telemetry, no accounts. The event log is a local SQLite database you control — export it, delete it, ignore it. macOS requires Location permission to read WiFi network names; SignalDrop never determines or transmits your geographic location.
- No analyticsSignalDrop never phones home. No SDKs, no trackers, no events.
- Local-only dataWiFi events live on disk in
~/Library/Application Support/SignalDrop/. - Location for SSID onlyRequired by macOS to read network names. Never logged or sent.
- Sandboxed on the App StoreThe Mac App Store build runs in Apple’s sandbox.
How it compares
SignalDrop vs the other Mac WiFi apps.
There are good Mac WiFi tools. Most are scanners or analyzers — heavyweight diagnostic tools for IT professionals. SignalDrop is the only one built for everyday users who just need to know when WiFi drops and prove outages to their ISP.
| Feature | SignalDrop $4.99 |
WiFi Signal $4.99 |
Wifiry $9.99 |
WiFi Explorer $19.99 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Instant disconnect notifications | ✓ | ✓ | — | — |
| Exact downtime duration on reconnect | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Per-network uptime tracking | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Connection-quality A–F grade | ✓ | — | — | — |
| ISP-ready outage receipt (one-click) | ✓ | — | — | — |
| "Connected but no internet" detection | ✓ | — | — | — |
| Signal-strength reading (dBm) | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Nearby network scanner | v1.1 | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Real-time signal/noise graphs | v1.1 | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Channel-conflict analysis | v2.0 | — | — | ✓ |
| Zero polling (event-driven CoreWLAN) | ✓ | ? | ? | ? |
| No analytics or telemetry | ✓ | ? | ? | ? |
Different tools for different jobs. WiFi Explorer at $19.99 is the gold standard for IT professionals doing spectrum analysis and channel-conflict diagnosis — if you're a network engineer, get it. Wifiry at $9.99 is a solid all-rounder for signal-strength display and basic scanning. WiFi Signal at $4.99 has gorgeous real-time graphs. None of them track reliability over time, generate ISP receipts, or catch the "connected but no internet" state.
SignalDrop owns the "always-running reliability monitor" niche. Why is your Mac WiFi dropping? — full diagnostic guide with the seven most common causes.
Frequently asked
Common questions about SignalDrop.
Does macOS notify you when WiFi disconnects?
No. macOS has never built a native WiFi-disconnect notification. The menu-bar WiFi icon goes from full bars to empty bars and assumes you'll notice — there's no banner, sound, or alert. SignalDrop adds the missing notification by registering for kernel-level CoreWLAN events and pushing a native macOS notification the instant the connection state changes.
How much does SignalDrop cost?
$4.99 one-time on the Mac App Store. No in-app purchases, no subscription. The price includes all future 1.x updates (planned: nearby network scanner and signal graphs in v1.1; customizable menu bar and AP vendor IDs in v1.5).
Why does SignalDrop need Location Services permission?
macOS requires Location permission for any app to read WiFi network names (SSID) — Apple changed this in macOS 14 Sonoma. SignalDrop uses your network name solely to display it in the menu bar and notifications. Your geographic location is never determined, stored, logged, or transmitted. SignalDrop makes zero outbound network requests.
Can SignalDrop prove WiFi outages to my ISP?
Yes. SignalDrop's one-click "Copy Receipt for Support" feature generates a paste-ready outage timeline with timestamps, durations, and a connection-quality grade. Paste it into your ISP's support chat or email — the data is concrete enough to defeat the standard "we ran a line test and everything looks fine" response.
Does SignalDrop work on Intel Macs?
Yes. SignalDrop ships a universal binary supporting both Apple Silicon (M-series) and Intel Macs. Minimum supported macOS is 13 Ventura.
Does SignalDrop drain battery?
No. SignalDrop uses Apple's CoreWLAN event-delegate API to receive kernel-level notifications when WiFi state changes — it never polls. Between events, the app is essentially idle. Battery impact is unmeasurable.
Is SignalDrop different from WiFi Signal or WiFi Explorer?
Yes. WiFi Signal ($4.99) and WiFi Explorer ($19.99) are scanner and analyzer tools for IT professionals — they focus on real-time signal display, channel analysis, and 802.11 decoding. SignalDrop is built for everyday Mac users who need to know when WiFi drops and prove outages to their ISP. It's the only app in this category that tracks long-term per-network reliability and generates ISP-ready outage receipts.
More questions? See the full support page or read the deep-dive guide "Why your Mac silently drops WiFi (and how to catch it)".
Know when your WiFi drops — before everyone on the call does.
macOS 13 or later. Universal binary. One-time install.