Location Changer

This script automatically changes macOS's network location based on the name of the active Wi-Fi network (SSID) and runs custom (user-supplied) scripts when the network state changes, say, for changing proxy settings or mounting remote SMB shares.

**Note: the original method is thought to have broken with macOS 15 (Sequoia) due to framework privacy settings, resulting in either null script results or <redacted>.

The key functionality - the retrieval of the current Wi-Fi SSID triggering the location change and any optional scripts - has been reworked and confirmed to work udner macOS 26.3.1 (Tahoe). While the script does invoke sudo to create/install the script and LaunchAgents, it is rootless from there on out.

Installation & Update

curl -L https://github.com/pbernicchi/locationchanger/raw/master/locationchanger.sh | bash

It will ask you for a root password to install locationchanger to the /usr/local/bin directory.

**NOTE:**You may wish to install to another directory like /opt/homebrew/bin. If you do, omit the | bash from the curl command above so the script only downloads. You can edit the INSTALL_DIR at the top of the script to whatever you want, and also change the LaunchAgent path at the bottom of the script (line #6 below):

<dict>
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>org.eprev.locationchanger</string>
    <key>ProgramArguments</key>
    <array>
        <string>/usr/local/bin/locationchanger</string> <!-- ENSURE THIS PATH TO MATCH $INSTALL_DIR -->
    </array>

Then save and manually run the install script as yourself. (./locationchanger.sh)

Basic Usage

You have to name network locations after Wi-Fi networks. Let’s say, you need to have a specific network preferences for “Corp Wi-Fi” wireless network, then you have to create a location “Corp Wi-Fi”. Now, the network location will change to “Corp Wi-Fi” automatically, if you connect to that wireless network. And if you connect to the Wi-Fi network that you don’t have a location for, then the location will change to the default one (“Automatic”).

If you want to run a script every time you connect to a specific Wi-Fi network, then put those scripts in ~/.locations and name them after Wi-Fi networks (making sure you set corresponding network locations). For instance, you have a script that changes security preferences when you connect to the “Corp Wi-Fi” network:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
exec 2>&1

# Require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set require password to wake of security preferences to true'

Then name this script as ~/.locations/Corp Wi-Fi. And you might want to create ~/.locations/Automatic that will reset those changes:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
exec 2>&1

# Don’t require password immediately after sleep or screen saver begins
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to set require password to wake of security preferences to false'

Aliasing

If you want to share one network location between different wireless networks (for instance, you have a wireless router which broadcasts on 2.4 and 5GHz bands simultaneously), then you can create a configuration file ~/.locations/locations.conf (plain text file with simple key-value pairs, no spaces in between):

Wi-Fi_5GHz=Wi-Fi

Where the keys are the wireless network names and the values are the desired location names.

Troubleshooting

This script writes helpful information to the log file every time the wireless network changes:

tail -f ~/Library/Logs/LocationChanger.log

Sample output:

Connected to 'Wi-Fi_5GHz'
Will switch the location to 'Wi-Fi' (configuration file)
Changing the location to 'Wi-Fi'
Running '~/.locations/Wi-Fi'

Credits

This project is a fork of the original project by https://github.com/eprev, found at https://github.com/eprev/locationchanger (2020-2021). No issues or PRs have been acted upon by the author in 5 years. Efforts will be made to encourage a merge or transfer of the project to this repo.

More information on attributon can be found in the CONTRIB.md stub.