FAQ
Netfox is a native macOS app that shows you a live list of every device on your home network, with first-seen / last-seen history and alerts when something new connects.
Yes, Netfox is currently free. If you find it useful, consider sponsoring the project.
macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later. Netfox is built with SwiftUI and uses APIs available from macOS 15+.
Three discovery passes work in parallel: Bonjour/mDNS (Apple devices, AirPlay, HomeKit, printers), the system ARP cache (anything that has talked on the LAN recently), and active ICMP probing for known IPs (catches devices that are alive but quiet). Results merge into one device record per physical device.
No. Everything Netfox sees lives on your Mac. No cloud account, no telemetry, no usage analytics. The app only talks to GitHub for update checks (no identifying information attached to that request).
Read-only by default. The active-probing module sends ICMP echo (standard ping) — that's the only outbound traffic Netfox generates on its own. No port scans, no DHCP poking, nothing intrusive.
Only for networks the Mac is currently attached to (any interface — Wi-Fi, Ethernet, Thunderbolt bridge). Devices on an isolated guest network or a different VLAN are invisible to the Mac itself, so Netfox can't see them either — that's a router limitation, not a Netfox one.
Please open a Bug Report on GitHub. Include your Netfox version, macOS version, and steps to reproduce the issue. Screenshots are very helpful!
We'd love to hear your ideas! Open a Feature Request on GitHub and describe what you'd like Netfox to do. The more detail you provide, the better we can evaluate and prioritize it.
