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For my work I need hundreds of open tabs in my Chrome. When I restart, Mac automatically connects to Wi-Fi and all tabs get loaded which consumes much memory. I don't want this.

What I have to do is manually turn off Wi-Fi, then launch Chrome. When all tabs get loaded with "Unable to connect to the Internet", I turn on Wi-Fi. This helps me not waste memory on unused tabs.

So, is there a way to force Mac not to auto connect to Wi-Fi? I still need it "Remember networks this computer has joined" since I use my company's secure network and I don't want to reenter all the credentials all the time.

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You need hundreds of opened but useless tabs? That sounds like a problem with your work style, more than a problem with how OS X / Chrome works. Do you want bookmarks instead? And how would turning off WiFi help? You'd still have to open Chrome before clicking on the WiFi name, which comes down to turning the WiFi on... – houbysoft Oct 3 '12 at 2:38
That's not a problem. They are not useless. It's just that some are useless at a certain point of time. For example, in the early morning when I get to work, I don't need certain sites to be loaded. When I'm doing work A, I need window A with X number of tabs. When I'm doing work B, I need window B with Y number of tabs. They are far from useless, they're just "unused" at a point in time. – Eye Oct 3 '12 at 7:43
That sounds like you want chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/session-manager/… – houbysoft Oct 3 '12 at 16:12
Thanks for a link. Trying it. – Eye Oct 10 '12 at 1:19

1 Answer

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Go to the network preferences, select "Wi-Fi", and click "Advanced..." (you may have to click the lock in the bottom left first). Then, in the "Preferred Networks" list, delete any that you don't want.

The passwords are saved separately, in the keychain. I have verified that removing an SSID from the list in the network preferences doesn't remove it from the keychain, so you can delete them without worrying. (this is unlike the case with iOS, where forgetting a network also forgets the password)

You may also want to uncheck "Remember networks this computer has joined" to prevent them from being re-added when you join them again. Again, this is separate from the "Save password in keychain" that saves the password in the keychain when you enter it.

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I was afraid unchecking of "Remember networks this computer has joined" would remove the login credentials. Fortunately, it doesn't. Thank you for encouraging me to try that! – Eye Oct 10 '12 at 1:17

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