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Apple Removes Network Locations Feature in macOS Ventura

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In addition to redesigning the System Settings app on macOS Ventura, Apple has removed the app's longstanding Network Locations feature, as noted by Jason Snell at Six Colors. The feature allowed users to quickly switch between different sets of Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and other network settings depending on their location, such as home or work.

macos-ventura-network-locations.jpeg

Given that macOS Ventura is still in beta, there is always a chance that Network Locations could return at some point, but this seems unlikely given that Apple marked Tyler Loch's bug report about the feature's absence as "works as currently designed."

In a support document, Apple says the Network Locations feature could be useful in circumstances such as those listed below:
- You use the same type of network (such as Ethernet) at work and at home, but the settings you use at work don't allow your Mac to automatically connect to the same type of network at home.

- Your Mac connects to more than one type of network service (such as both Wi-Fi and Ethernet) at work and at home, but at work you want your Mac to try connecting to the Ethernet network first, and at home you want your Mac to try connecting to the Wi-Fi network first. In other words, you want to set a different service order for each location.

- Your Mac isn't connecting to your network and you want to quickly reset your network settings for testing purposes, without losing your current network settings.
Click to expand...
Snell says Apple's command-line tool "networksetup" is still present in the latest macOS Ventura beta, so a third-party developer could step in and release an app to replace the Network Locations functionality removed in the System Settings app.

Article Link: Apple Removes Network Locations Feature in macOS Ventura
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/12/apple-removes-network-locations-macos-ventura/
Last edited:
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temende said:
My guess is they will bring it back in a few years as a "new feature" like they are doing with the battery percentage.
Click to expand...

Battery Percentage. Network Location. And Mobile Home Folders.
Battery Percentage! Network Location!! And Mobile Home Folders!!

BATTERY PERCENTAGE! NETWORK LOCATION!! ... Are you getting it yet???

These are not 3 separate updates!!!

Introducing.... iosOSmacOS

:D
 
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I understand why they want to streamline the settings and make it more in line with iOS/iPadOS. But so far the new settings panel on macOS Ventura has been a mess. Lots of settings are simply missing. No toggle for on-demand for VPN connections, on my Mac mini there is no option for me to set when my system is supposed to go to sleep, etc..

Still in BETA, but there are so many obvious things missing and we are already at BETA5. Unless macOS is getting delayed like iPadOS there isn't much time left before it has to go into Release Candidates which normally means no changes to features or GUI, only bug squishing.
 
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alexandr said:
Pardon my ignorance on this matter, but how was this used? I mean you would connect to a different network depending on where you were, wouldn't you?
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You could basically have your Mac adjust your network configuration for you based on your WiFi network, e.g. automatically use a different DNS server at home vs work.

It was a niche feature for sure but I also don't see why it needs to be removed. Part of what made macOS special was a lot of these little "nice touches" that came built in to the OS.
 
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alexandr said:
Pardon my ignorance on this matter, but how was this used? I mean you would connect to a different network depending on where you were, wouldn't you?
Click to expand...

It's more of an enterprise/professional feature. But if you are one that relies on static IP on Ethernet, or adding a VLAN-tag on Ethernet for instance you could have one setting for let's say location "Corporate Main Office", and one for "Corporate Off-Site" instead of having to manually change your static IP or VLAN-tag each time you move between location. You would simply switch your location which contains the correct settings for whatever location you are currently in.

This is very niche and I don't know many that utilise it.
 
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temende said:
You could basically have your Mac adjust your network configuration for you based on your WiFi network, e.g. automatically use a different DNS server at home vs work.

It was a niche feature for sure but I also don't see why it needs to be removed. Part of what made macOS special was a lot of these little "nice touches" that came built in to the OS.
Click to expand...
Roger that, thanks. Yea, in all these years never even knew what that was for :)
 
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alexandr said:
Pardon my ignorance on this matter, but how was this used? I mean you would connect to a different network depending on where you were, wouldn't you?
Click to expand...

I haven't used it recently, but in the past I'd use it to switch Network settings as I moved to different locations. This really was a more advanced feature that the average user would never use, and I suspect that they are removing it because it was lightly-used. Dumbing down the system. Not happy about that, if true.
 
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RamGuy said:
It's more of an enterprise/professional feature. But if you are one that relies on static IP on Ethernet, or adding a VLAN-tag on Ethernet for instance you could have one setting for let's say location "Corporate Main Office", and one for "Corporate Off-Site" instead of having to manually change your static IP or VLAN-tag each time you move between location. You would simply switch your location which contains the correct settings for whatever location you are currently in.

This is very niche and I don't know many that utilise it.
Click to expand...
Gotcha. Yea, not much use for me, but not sure why they needed to remove it, if it was useful for some.
 
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chucker23n1 said:
My wishful thinking is that Focus, in the long run, is a modern take on Mac OS Classic’s Location Manager. You can *kind* of do this by switching network settings based on focus mode using a script.
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I suppose they could tie script actions to the change in Focus. And those scripts could change network settings. But, ironically, if that were to happen, they would be removing a simple click-based method of doing that with one that requires scripting knowledge. Kinda backwards, if you ask me.
 
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I used to heavily use Network Locations back when I did more network testing and had private static IPs on our home network. After dropping all that, I have only used it very rarely. It's still a useful enough feature that removing it would be a palpable loss for macOS, but 99% of the user base will never need it.
 
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RamGuy said:
It's more of an enterprise/professional feature. But if you are one that relies on static IP on Ethernet, or adding a VLAN-tag on Ethernet for instance you could have one setting for let's say location "Corporate Main Office", and one for "Corporate Off-Site" instead of having to manually change your static IP or VLAN-tag each time you move between location. You would simply switch your location which contains the correct settings for whatever location you are currently in.

This is very niche and I don't know many that utilise it.
Click to expand...

Ding Ding Ding!

Next up... "macOS Pro".

Let's hope that Apple doesn't do this. Having "one Mac OS" has always been one of their more favourable attributes, unlike the Windows experience where you needed to choose between 6 different flavours.
 
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coolfactor said:
I haven't used it recently, but in the past I'd use it to switch Network settings as I moved to different locations. This really was a more advanced feature that the average user would never use, and I suspect that they are removing it because it was lightly-used. Dumbing down the system. Not happy about that, if true.
Click to expand...
Perhaps there will be a third-party workaround for this?
 
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