Activate Mac -- no WiFi menu to select network

Hey Judy,

Chiming in here to offer an alternative. I had the same problem not so long ago with my M1 chip Macbook Air. I realized when plugged to a power socket the option to select the internet at the top right corner disappears. So I simply disconnected the laptop from the power socket and hovered to the top right corner where the wifi icon popped up. Note even so it was still invisible but hovering on there revealed the wifi options to connect to. Something Apple should def work on.

I was trying to wipe clean and reformat a 13 MBP Intel (A2251) and despite the fact that it would show me the wifi networks available when booting to Internet recovery, it wouldn't show me anything when it got to recovery (Activate Mac). I was only able to make it do what I wanted by selecting Other Network and manually keying in my network name and password. Annoying and I simply don't understand why it would be necessary to do that.

I have shut down the Mac. While powering on, held the Power button until it boots in safe mode. Once In the safe mode selected the only option to avialable, it rebooted the mac with wifi icon on the top corner.

This will work, shutdown and then touch/press the power button for a sec to turn it on and then right away hold down the power button till the recovery screen shows up, proceed with language choice etc and in a few secs you will see wifi icon will show up

Hi

This just happened to me! I was able to get the wifi symbol back by:

Shutting the computer off, then turning on again but immediently pressing power button and shift until gear icon showed up and the wifi menu appeared. That helped me!

Hi! So I’ve had this issue today! It’s a brand new MacBook Pro too!

spoke to the senior engineer at Apple on the phone and he advised me of the following.

open mac in recovery mode > it’ll ask to connect to wifi on the menu but there won’t be any option for wifi anywhere > top left there’s the apple symbol and next to that is ‘recovery assistant’ > click ‘recovery assistant’ > and then click ‘erase mac’.

follow the instructions and then itll

reset

this should reboot itself and then top right when it loads up and you select your language it should now show you the wifi symbol to select a wifi network! Hurray!

Hold down the Physical power button. The screen will go black. While still holding the power button also hold down command+r, Startup options will appear, the screen will prompt you to continue holding down the power button to load in these options. Once you select the options button, it will restart and the Wi-Fi menu should appear.

This is the solution, turn off the MacBook in the normal way and when you turn it on, hold the physical button and it will show information about the boot, let it do the whole process and you can activate the MacBook with Wi-Fi

I experienced the same problem with my MacBook M1. I tried all the recommendations provided, but to no avail. However, I discovered a fix. First, power off your MacBook. Then, quickly tap the power button once and release it. Immediately after, press and hold the power button until the Options menu shows up. From there, proceed by selecting your language. After that, you should see the WiFi icon.

I read all the answers below but still didn’t work.

Thankfully i tried pressing the power button for long maybe 5 seconds. Then it shutdown. Then press again for 5 seconds or longer and the setting setip appear. When I clicked next it profeed on the Activate Mac window setup and the grayed wifi menu was appeared.

hopefully you got it too.

Awesome! I found it when I read this post--the wifi was almost invisible it was so dark next to the keyboard.

I am not sure if it was there all along, or appeared after i tried the command+shift+power button directions.

Thanks all!

On the activation lock/unlock screen.

It tells you to select a net work, but there is no obvious Netwerk menu.

Well I finally found if you look in the top right corner of the menu between the battery symbol and the input menu there is the grayed out menu for the Wi-Fi connections. You would never see them unless you were specifically looking up there but there they are and you can scroll down and pick the one you need from the networks that are available. Hope this helps someone.

I don't have an ethernet nor another mac that works. How do i fix this and access the wifi. there is wifi just no option to join it>

I've found an ethernet cable but there's not way to connect it to the macbook?