See your Mac’s network activity at a glance. Test its capacity when you need to.
Download · How it works · Contribute · Security
A native Swift menu bar app for macOS 14 and later, built with AppKit and SwiftUI. It starts monitoring at launch and keeps updating while the panel is closed. Use it to see whether a download is progressing, notice an active upload, or spot a connection outage without opening another window.
- Automatic live readings. One-second updates by default, with an optional battery policy and recovery after missing counters, network changes and wake.
- Both directions, always. Download over upload in the menu bar, with whichever direction is transferring drawn in bold. A single-number layout is still selectable.
- Numbers you can read. Precision follows the size of the value in the unit you chose,
so small but real traffic shows as
0.02or<0.01instead of rounding away to zero. - Capacity when you ask for it. Go tries Cloudflare's measurement host, then its classic host, then Apple's built-in tool, and tells you which one answered.
- Clear measurement status. Unavailable or stale live data shows
—. Tests show errors and quality labels; previous results retain their time and measurement method. - Connection awareness. Outage detection, a local outage log and silent notification banners, subject to macOS notification permissions and Focus settings.
- Made for the menu bar. Launch at login, selectable layouts and Mbps or MB/s units.
Download a disk image from GitHub Releases, open it, and drag InternetSpeedReader.app into Applications. Open the app there; its icon appears in the menu bar. Launch at login is enabled by default and can be changed in Settings.
Public builds use an ad-hoc signature and are not notarized by Apple. Gatekeeper may block a downloaded build. Keep macOS security protections enabled; building the source locally is an alternative. Release notes identify the artifact and its SHA-256 checksum.
To move the menu bar item, hold Command and drag it. If a crowded or notched menu bar hides it, choose a more compact layout in Settings.
You need macOS 14+, Xcode with Swift 6 support, and XcodeGen. Builds do not require an API key or the maintainer’s signing certificate.
git clone https://github.com/Srimi1/Internet-speed-reader.git
cd Internet-speed-reader
./scripts/install.shSee Contributing for development setup, signing options and tests.
./scripts/make-dmg.sh produces a disk image in dist/.
The app answers two different questions:
| Live menu bar and panel | Manual capacity test | |
|---|---|---|
| Question | How much traffic is moving now? | How fast can this test connection transfer data? |
| Source | macOS kernel interface counters | Payload transferred by the test engine |
| Scope | All apps on the selected network interface | Cloudflare, or Apple Deep Test |
| While idle | Usually near zero | Requires starting a test |
| If data is invalid | An unavailable indicator | An error or a limited-result label |
Live monitoring reads 64-bit byte and packet counters from the kernel. Speeds use actual elapsed time, with time-based smoothing. Interface selection avoids counting both a physical connection and its VPN tunnel. The meter measures aggregate traffic, which can include protocol overhead, retransmissions and local-network transfers; it does not identify individual apps or inspect their packet contents.
Upload detection allows for small control packets before applying a sustained-activity threshold. This is a conservative heuristic: a small upload during heavy downloading can remain filtered, and VPN or QUIC traffic can affect classification. The displayed upload rate is always the measured rate; the allowance only selects the direction.
Go uses Cloudflare’s public speed-test endpoints. Downloads require a valid response and the exact requested body length; uploads require a matching server-confirmed byte count. Final rates use validated transfers over measured time after a 1.5-second warm-up, including stalls. Concurrent streams share time and byte budgets. Provisional progress is separate from saved results, and cancelled or failed transfers cannot become a successful measurement.
Apple Deep Test, available from the panel’s menu, runs macOS networkQuality as a
second opinion. It also reports responsiveness under load when available. Providers,
routes and methods differ, so results need not match each other or Ookla. Cloudflare
explains these differences in its measurement overview.
Outage detection combines network-path changes with small connectivity probes. Two failed probes confirm an outage, one success clears it, and grace periods reduce notifications during launch, wake and interface changes. Connectivity probes pause during sleep and capacity tests.
There is no account, API-key setup, analytics SDK or application telemetry service. The app does make network requests for these features:
| Feature | Network or local data used |
|---|---|
| Live traffic meter | Local aggregate kernel counters; no packet-content capture |
| Automatic connectivity checks | HTTPS requests to Google’s gstatic.com; Apple’s captive.apple.com HTTP check is the fallback for detecting captive portals |
| Manual Go test | Synthetic test traffic and server metadata from speed.cloudflare.com |
| Manual Apple Deep Test | Test traffic through the system networkQuality tool to Apple’s test service |
| Local history | Test timestamps, speeds, quality and available provider/location/server metadata; outage times and interface information |
Network providers can see ordinary connection information, including your public IP address. Upload tests generate random test data; they do not upload your documents. Preferences and history are stored in your macOS user account. Clear test history and outages from Settings → Network. These local records can contain personal network information, so review and redact them before attaching anything to a public issue.
Read the security policy for private vulnerability reporting and the contribution guidelines before sharing logs, configuration or patches.
Version 2.0.0 shows both directions by default, stops rounding real traffic to zero, and replaces the single capacity provider with a fallback chain. The core suite has 187 passing tests. See the changelog and the verification report for the tested scope and what is still unchecked.
- The HTTP 403 that broke capacity tests in 1.1.0 was traced to two missing request headers combined with a request size the classic host refuses. Both are fixed, and the refusal was reproduced and confirmed resolved against the live endpoints.
- A full Go run through the installed app, sleep and wake, and a real VPN have not been re-verified on 2.0.0. There is no claim of parity with any other speed test.
- Capacity tests are manual and transfer real data. Data-saver mode reduces budgets; the displayed usage estimate is approximate.
- Some existing Settings controls remain unwired, including metered-test confirmation, notification timing preferences and automatic panel reopening. See remaining limitations before relying on them.
- Exact application attribution, scheduled capacity tests, auto-update and Apple notarization are not implemented.
SpeedCore contains the UI-free measurement and state logic. The app target supplies
AppKit, SwiftUI, lifecycle handling and system integrations. Tests link only SpeedCore
and use local doubles; they do not start the menu bar app or run internet speed tests.
xcodegen generate --spec project.yml
xcodebuild -project InternetSpeedReader.xcodeproj \
-scheme InternetSpeedReader \
-destination 'platform=macOS' \
-derivedDataPath "$HOME/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/InternetSpeedReader" \
testExplore the architecture, design decisions and contribution guide. For bugs and feature requests, use GitHub Issues.
Turn off Launch at login in Settings, then run ./scripts/uninstall.sh from the
source checkout. The script removes the app, preferences, test history and outage log.
Apache-2.0. This project is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple, Cloudflare or Ookla.