Snippet: Apple Removes Network Locations From macOS Ventura ☇

Jason Snell (via Stephen Hackett):

Network Locations is a feature of macOS that, ever since version 10.0, has allowed users to switch between different sets of network configuration preferences in different environments and situations. It’s not visible in the redesigned System Preferences app of macOS Ventura—and Tyler Loch discovered that the disappearance is not an accident. Loch’s Feedback submission to Apple has been marked as “works as currently designed.”

Length of service in macOS is not reason enough to keep any feature around, but I’ve heard from several people who say they still use this feature and are upset that it’s seemingly been terminated. It’s useful in business situations where different networks have different properties. One colleague of mine says he uses the feature to debug network problems without messing up existing settings and to connect to specific devices when visiting a relative’s house.

This feature was handy for the few times you had to set specific network settings for a location and could toggle between the profiles. Additionally, in my years of troubleshooting Macs, one extreme way to fix broken connectivity would be to create a new Network Location profile and delete the default. This tended to work even when all the settings looked correct otherwise—there’s probably a way to delete the equivalent .plist file, but still, this is way easier.