Getting Wi-Fi SSID on Mac via bash using Shortcuts

Recent macOS releases restrict direct access to Wi-Fi details like SSID and BSSID for privacy reasons. Commands such as airport are deprecated, and modern tools like wdutil often return redacted values unless run with elevated privileges. Also check out this great post by Dan K. Snelson.

Shortcuts app

The reliable, Apple-supported solution is to use the Shortcuts app.

Create a new Shortcut and make sure you’re using the “Get Network Details” node with “Wi-Fi” and “Network Name” arguments. Then connect it to another node “Stop and output”.

Getting output in Bash

When you first run the command, MacOS will request permissions.

For some reason the command by itself does not return anything, but when paired with capturing – it will output your SSID:

$ shortcuts run "Get Wi-Fi SSID"
$ output=$(shortcuts run "Get Wi-Fi SSID")
$ echo $output
Anton’s iPhone

You can then use this in your rc file for scripting 👌