For hotel, café and airport Wi-Fi
Full bars, nothing loads, and it’s the third time today. Usually the internet is fine and the hotel’s sign-in page has logged you out again. Kilobat says so, opens the page in one click, and learns how long a sign-in lasts so it can warn you before the next one runs out.
brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobatLogged out by the Wi-Fi’s sign-in page. Sign in again.
Kilobat
Harbour Guest will log you out in 5 min
Open sign-in page
Hotel, café, airport and coworking Wi-Fi holds every connection until you sign in on its own page, a captive portal, and many log you out again after an hour or a day. Here is what you see, what is usually behind it, and what Kilobat does.
The Mac rejoined a network it already knew, or a VPN, iCloud Private Relay or custom DNS kept the network from redirecting you.
Kilobat finds the sign-in page anyway and puts Open sign-in page in the menu bar. It opens the address the network redirected Kilobat’s own check to. Free
Your sign-in ran out. The network holds every request until you sign in again.
The menu bar says Logged out by the Wi-Fi’s sign-in page, with Sign in again, instead of leaving you to restart the Wi-Fi. Free
The network gives each sign-in a set time, such as one hour of free Wi-Fi.
Kilobat learns how long sign-ins last on that network and warns you about five minutes before the next one runs out. Pro
Behind a sign-in page, DNS, ping and the speed test all fail at once.
Health names the one cause, the sign-in page, and stops blaming DNS, ping loss or your provider. The event log records a Wi-Fi sign-in, not an outage. Free
You opened an https site, and the network answered with its own page in its place.
Kilobat checks with a plain http address, which a network can redirect without a warning, and opens the page it was sent to. Free
macOS opens a sign-in window by itself when it joins a network that needs one. When that window doesn’t come, these steps bring the page up, with or without Kilobat.
In Safari, go to http://captive.apple.com or http://neverssl.com. A network can send a plain http page to its sign-in page. An https page it can only replace with a warning.
Turn off your VPN, and Private Relay for this network in System Settings › Wi-Fi › Details… › Limit IP address tracking. Custom DNS can hide the page too. kilobat dns automatic puts the network’s own back.
In System Settings › Wi-Fi, forget the network, then join it from the Wi-Fi menu. A network the Mac doesn’t know gets the sign-in window again. Check behind your other windows too.
Turn the VPN, Private Relay and your own DNS back on once you’re signed in. If the page still never appears, the front desk can tell you whether the network allows only so many devices per room.
Kilobat doesn’t open a browser on its own or cover the window macOS shows when you join. It is there for when that window doesn’t appear, and for when the network logs you out later. The guide Wi-Fi login page does not appear on a Mac has the Terminal checks for DNS and VPNs.
In the menu bar
When a sign-in page is in the way, the Kilobat menu shows one row instead of a page of red. A new network says This Wi-Fi wants you to sign in, with Open sign-in page. A network you were signed in on says Logged out by the Wi-Fi’s sign-in page, with Sign in again. Name the place on the This place card and it uses that name, such as “Logged out by The Long Table’s Wi-Fi”.
captive.apple.com and Google’s generate_204 address, when you join, when the internet check fails and every 5 to 15 minutes otherwise.Free, like the rest of the menu bar. Read how the checks work.
This Wi-Fi wants you to sign in. Open sign-in page.
Kilobat notes when each sign-in starts and when the sign-in page comes back, on every network, on this Mac. After two whole sessions it knows.
The check goes from the sign-in page to Success, and Kilobat notes the start.
FreeThe menu says you were logged out, not that the internet is down. One session, about an hour.
FreeTwo sessions, so Kilobat takes their median as the network’s usual length. A session cut short by sleep, leaving the network or reconnecting doesn’t count.
Free“Harbour Guest will log you out in 5 min”, with Open sign-in page. While you’re signed in, the menu reads “Signed in · about 40 min left”.
ProWarnings
About five minutes before a sign-in usually runs out, Kilobat Pro sends one notification with Open sign-in page. If the network logs you out anyway, “Logged out by Harbour Guest” says your internet isn’t down and offers Sign in again.
captive-portals.json on this Mac and is never sent anywhere.Turn the warnings off in Settings › Monitoring › Warn before Wi-Fi sign-ins run out. AI agents read the same through the MCP tool get_captive_portal.
# Is a sign-in page in the way, and how long is left?
$ kilobat portal
# Open the sign-in page in your browser
$ kilobat portal open
# The same for scripts, with each network's history
$ kilobat portal --jsonkilobat portal and the MCP tool for agentsPro is $19 once for two Macs, with a 7-day free trial and 14-day refunds. Free for students.
Most hotel, café and airport networks give each sign-in a set time, often an hour or a day, or end it after the Mac has been asleep or away for a while. When it runs out, the network sends every request back to its sign-in page, so the Mac looks connected while nothing loads. Signing in again fixes it; Kilobat tells you when that is the problem.
macOS opens the sign-in window when it joins a network that needs one. It can miss it when the Mac rejoins a network on its own, or when a VPN, iCloud Private Relay or custom DNS keeps the network from redirecting you. Open http://captive.apple.com or http://neverssl.com in Safari, or click Open sign-in page in Kilobat.
No. It never fills in or accepts anything on the sign-in page, and never opens a browser on its own. It finds the page, tells you why the internet stopped, and opens the page when you click.
Only the checks themselves, plain http requests to captive.apple.com and Google’s connectivitycheck.gstatic.com, the same ones macOS and Android use. The sign-in history stays on this Mac.
No. When you join a network, macOS shows its own window and Kilobat stays quiet. Kilobat helps when that window doesn’t appear, and later, when the network logs you out.
Spotting the sign-in page, Open sign-in page, the logged-out message and kilobat portal are free. The warning before a sign-in runs out and the time left are part of Kilobat Pro, $19 once with a 7-day free trial.
brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobat