BTV, LAX, JFK, IAD…no, I’m not talking about those kind of airports—though JFK’s new T5 is pretty cool—I’m talking about wireless networks. If your Mac goes everywhere with you, it’s a safe bet it has joined several wireless networks in its lifetime. You may have even joined multiple networks in the same building if you live in an apartment complex or a dorm. Your machine keeps a record of every network you’ve joined, and in the case of encrypted networks stores passwords in your Keychain. Though OS X does a fairly good job of retaining which networks are used most frequently, occasionally things can fall out of sync. If your Mac consistently joins a neighboring wireless network instead of your own when starting up or waking from sleep, it’s time to reorder your AirPort preferences.
Doing this is easy. Simply launch System Preferences and select Network. Choose AirPort in the left column if it’s not already selected, then click the “Advanced…” button. In the window that rolls down select the AirPort tab. Here you’ll see a box listing Preferred Networks. Your most used networks should be at the top of the list. If you don’t see your primary wireless network in the immediate list, scroll down until you find it. Reordering is as easy as clicking the Network Name and dragging it to a different position in the list. To ensure that your Mac is making quick and reliable connections rearrange your networks so that your top three are in the proper order. For instance: Home, Office, Coffee Shop. If you see old networks in the list that you don’t envision using again, you can delete them by highlighting and clicking the minus sign. If you need to add a new network manually or edit the settings of an existing network press the plus sign or pencil respectively. There are all sorts of other preferences that can be adjusted in this panel, though some can have detrimental effects on your system if not configured properly. Experiment at your own risk.