Up?

Captive portal detector

Connected to cafe Wi-Fi does not mean online.

Airport, hotel, train, and cafe Wi-Fi often connects before it lets you through. Up? tells you when your Mac is stuck behind a captive portal, so you stop blaming Slack, Git, or your browser and open the login page first.

$9 once. Lifetime updates. No subscription.

OnlineDNSPortalOffline
What it checks

Wi-Fi connected is not the same as online.

Up? keeps the diagnosis short enough to read under pressure. The labeled dot is the answer. The one-hour timeline is the recent evidence.

Catch the in-between state

Captive portals are not fully offline and not fully online. Up? gives that state its own warning so the menu bar answer matches what your apps are experiencing.

Useful before the browser opens

Command-line tools, sync clients, and meeting apps fail poorly behind portals. Up? catches the block before those failures look mysterious.

Made for working between places

If you work from cafes, hotels, co-working spaces, and trains, you hit portal limbo often enough that it deserves a permanent signal.

When it pays for itself

The moments where guessing costs more than $9.

  • Wi-Fi joins but every app still fails
  • The login page does not pop up automatically
  • You work from public networks often
  • You need to know when the portal, not the app, is blocking you
A focused Mac utility

Current state. Recent evidence. Nothing bloated.

  1. Glance at the labeled menu-bar state.
  2. Click to review the last hour of changes.
  3. Act on the portal, DNS, internet path, or app next.

Up? is not a speed test, bandwidth dashboard, or long-term ISP reporting suite. It answers the immediate reachability question.

Straight answers

What Mac users ask next.

What is a captive portal on a Mac?

A captive portal is the login or acceptance page that must be cleared after joining some public Wi-Fi networks. Until then, the Mac can appear connected while normal internet access remains blocked.

Why does hotel Wi-Fi connect but not show the login page?

The wireless link can complete before the portal opens or is accepted. Up? labels that in-between state so you know to look for the network login instead of debugging every failing app.

Does Up? log in to captive portals for me?

No. Up? detects and labels captive-portal limbo. You still review and accept the network operator's login page and terms yourself.