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When I turn on Wifi on my MacBook, it always selects some open network.

Can I somehow force the system to choose another network (it is password-protected but I have the password stored in the Keychain and it keeps choosing the open one)?

I'm using Mac OS X 10.7.4.

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  • I tried the suggestions below, and the first won't work for me. I opened the list and the unwanted network (some free network in my street that doesn't work at all for Macs) is the last in the list. Still --- my home router (Apple TimeCapsule) seems to be work a little slowly, and the mac gives it up too quickly, to go for lower-priority networks, ending up with the free network that doesn't work.
    – Motti Shneor
    Nov 6, 2014 at 10:14
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    The first answer below won't work for me. The unwanted network (some free network in my street that unusable for Macs) is the last in the list. Unfortunately, my home Airport-extreme router seems to respond too slowly, and the mac gives it up too quickly, to go for lower-priority networks, ending up with the unwanted network. So to I'll focus the question. Can I make a "Black list" of networks MacOS X will IGNORE?. The second answer is a viable solution, but makes connecting to networks a manual process, which is tedious.
    – Motti Shneor
    Nov 6, 2014 at 10:21

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Sure. Just go to System Preferences/Network, select Wifi and click Advanced. A list with all the Wifi networks you've been connected to will appear. Just rearrange the connection order (the ones you'd like to connect first on top) by drag-dropping.

Also, delete any unwanted network SSID (network names) if you no longer want to auto-join that.

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    This solution would be great except that OSX now shares the network SSID list with my iPhone (which I do want to connect with other networks). Any ideas?
    – Meekohi
    Sep 6, 2016 at 15:54
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You could also uncheck the "Remember networks this computer has joined", in combination with "Ask to join networks", ensuring that the one you want is in your preferred list.

This will then mean the computer will only connect to the preferred list in order that they appear. If they are not available for any reason it will simply ask you to join another (if it finds one), without then saving that network name in your list and joining it automatically subsequently, meaning you will be asked each time, even if you have used it before.

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  • A very nice ounce of prevention here...
    – bmike ♦
    Jul 10, 2012 at 13:48

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