How can I find Wi-Fi SSID using a terminal command?

Hello. Have you tried using wdutil?

usage: sudo wdutil diagnose [-q] [-f outputDirectoryPath]

            -q may be specified to suppress legal prompt and Finder window

       sudo wdutil info

       sudo wdutil log [{+|-} {system|wifi}]+

       sudo wdutil dump

       sudo wdutil clean

Hi,

SSID stands for "Service Set IDentifier" and is your Wi-Fi network name.

You can see it following commands in the Terminal.app.

networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}' | xargs networksetup -getairportnetwork

kaz-k wrote:

You can see it following commands in the Terminal.app.

networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}' | xargs networksetup -getairportnetwork

What I get…

dialabrain@iMac-M3 ~ % networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '/Wi-Fi/{getline; print $2}' | xargs networksetup -getairportnetwork

You are not associated with an AirPort network.

The following works on my Sequoia v15.3 system to output the SSID using the Zsh shell. It gets a sorted list of the en0 - en9 interfaces and performs an ipconfig getsummary on each. Finally, it finds the SSID (that leading space is deliberate) string in the getsummary output and prints it. Failed matches are discarded to dev/null.

for i in ${(o)$(ifconfig -lX "en[0-9]")};do ipconfig getsummary ${i} | awk '/ SSID/ {print $NF}';done 2> /dev/null



The wdutil info output shows <redacted> for both SSID and BSSID on my system. I am using WPA3 security and that may have something to do with the redaction.

A Zsh script that will also work (once made executable) if one's shell is Bash follows:

#!/bin/zsh

for i in ${(o)$(ifconfig -lX "en[0-9]")};
do 
    ipconfig getsummary ${i} | awk '/ SSID/ {print $NF}'
done 2> /dev/null
exit 0

FWIW, your command does work for me. What I don't understand is the need to use a Terminal command when the info is right in System Settings > Wi-Fi. 🤔

To create a script.

dialabrain wrote:

FWIW, your command does work for me. What I don't understand is the need to use a Terminal command when the info is right in System Settings > Wi-Fi. 🤔

I just complied with the original request that asked for a Terminal solution to find the SSID name.

Yes, I know. :)