How to test your Mac's internet speed and quality

Several options help you work out the performance and health of your Internet connection.

- GLENN FLEISHMAN

The past two years have put new emphasis on how T important an internet connection is to our daily lives. At the same time, some of us have never experienced such slowdowns and erratic performance as in these past two years, coupled with overloading our previously capable home networks. Measuring internet networking performance can help us stay efficient, find entertainment, and avoid a lot of frustration.

Several tools can help you measure or monitor your internet and network performance, and many of them are free. One is even built into macOS Monterey.

MONITOR VS. MEASURE, INTERNET VS. NETWORK

Checking in on your network health is always complicated by your position relative to the internet. Within your network, the speed of your connection via ethernet or Wi-Fi can constrain your internet bandwidth.

If you have 1Gbps ethernet throughout your home and your connection to the rest of the world is 1Gbps or less-likely still the case for nearly all of us-plugging in via ethernet will provide better test results about your internet connection than using Wi-Fi, which can be variable.

Many network tools measure (a single snapshot) or monitor (ongoing samples) data going in and out of a single computer.

This includes all data traveling within your local network and that being sent to and received from the internet. This includes macOS's Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities), Peak Hour (fave.co/3xmpKy7), and iStat Menus (fave.co/3x6vsUD). Peak Hour has the unique ability to also sample bandwidth data from routers and broadband modems that broadcast the information (more on that in a bit).

You can also pick up some information about your network connection in the system Wi-Fi menu. Some routers and broadband modems let you log in and view throughput data or run different network tests.