How to run a ping test on a Mac

To run a ping test on a Mac, open Terminal, type ping -c 10 followed by an address, such as your router’s or a website’s, and press Return. Each reply shows its round-trip time in milliseconds (ms): how long a small message took to get there and back. The summary shows packet loss and the minimum, average and maximum times. 0.0% packet loss means every ping came back.

By the Scope teamUpdated 6 min read

How do I ping from Terminal?

  1. Open Terminal. In the Finder, choose Go > Utilities, then open Terminal, or search for it with Spotlight.
  2. Type ping -c 10, a space and the address you want to test, then press Return. -c 10 sends 10 pings and then stops.
  3. Wait for the summary at the end.

Without -c, ping keeps going until you stop it: press Control-C or Command-period, and the summary appears.

What should I ping first?

Ping your router first, then a website. The router is the first stop for everything your Mac sends, so the two results split the connection in two: the Wi-Fi link to the router, and the internet beyond it.

To find your router’s address:

  1. Hold down the Option key and click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar.
  2. Look under the network you’re connected to: the router’s address is listed with your IP address, channel and signal.
The Wi-Fi status menu, Option-clicked: under Studio, IP Address 192.168.1.24 and Router 192.168.1.1, with Router ringed
This router’s address is 192.168.1.1. Illustration with made-up readings.

Then ping it:

ping -c 10 192.168.1.1
Ten replies from the router, about 3.5 ms each, none lost. Illustration with made-up readings.

Now ping a website. Use one you know replies, such as apple.com:

ping -c 10 apple.com
About 11 ms to the website and back, none lost. Illustration with made-up readings.

Here, the trip to the router takes about 3.5 ms of the 11.3 ms, so most of the time is spent beyond the router.

How do I read the results?

Each reply line shows, in order, the bytes received, the sequence number (icmp_seq, counting from 0), the time to live (ttl) and the round-trip time (time=).

  • time= is the round trip for that ping, in ms. Lower is quicker.
  • Packet loss is the share of pings that never came back. Check that the number of packets transmitted equals the number received: 0.0% packet loss is a successful test.
  • round-trip min/avg/max/stddev gives the shortest, average and longest times, and the standard deviation: how much the times varied. A small spread means a steady connection; a large one means the delay jumps around.
  • Request timeout for icmp_seq means that ping got no reply in time.

Put the two pings together:

Router pingWebsite pingWhere to look
Replies, 0.0% lossReplies, 0.0% lossThe basic connection works
Replies, 0.0% lossTimeouts or lossPast the router: the modem, the provider or that site
Timeouts or lossTimeouts or lossThe Wi-Fi link or the router

Some devices and servers don’t answer pings at all, so one silent site doesn’t prove a problem. Ping another site before you decide. If nothing past the router answers, see Mac connected to Wi-Fi but no internet?

What’s a good ping on a Mac?

Apple doesn’t give a number in milliseconds. Instead, macOS has its own test that rates the connection: networkQuality. Type it in Terminal and press Return.

Idle Latency 11.208 ms, close to the ping to apple.com, and responsiveness High. Illustration with made-up readings.
  • Idle Latency is the round-trip time while the connection is quiet, much like ping.
  • Responsiveness is how many round trips the connection completes in a minute under normal working conditions, in round trips per minute (RPM).

Apple rates responsiveness in three steps. Low: when another device downloads a movie or backs up photos, FaceTime calls or games may be unreliable. Medium: with several devices sharing the network, calls may pause or freeze for a moment. High: apps and services should keep a good connection however many devices share it. How to test internet speed on a Mac explains the rest of its numbers.

Questions people also ask

How do I stop ping on a Mac?

Press Control-C or Command-period. Ping stops and shows its summary. With -c 10, it stops by itself after 10 pings.

Why is my ping fine but calls still lag?

Ping measures a quiet connection. Calls lag when the delay grows while something else is downloading or uploading, which is what responsiveness measures. Run networkQuality to see it.

Does a ping test use much data?

No. Each ping is a tiny message, so ten of them use a few kilobytes. networkQuality is different: it moves a lot of data to measure your speed, so it uses much more.

Is ping to my router slower on Wi-Fi?

It can be, because every reply travels over Wi-Fi. If router pings are slow or lost, check the signal: What’s a good Wi-Fi signal? dBm explained.

Scope for Mac · Free, coming to the Mac App Store

How Scope helps

Scope is a free Mac menu bar app that runs macOS’s own networkQuality test in one click and shows your connection’s latency beside its download and upload speed, plus how quickly the connection still replies while it’s busy. It saves typing commands to see whether the delay is in your Wi-Fi or your internet.

In your menu bar

Scope in a Mac’s menu bar: the Scope icon and Network, 4.8 MB/s down and 830 KB/s up
Scope’s Network panel, opened from the menu bar: Studio on Wi-Fi, a strong signal at −48 dBm, and 4.8 MB/s down, 830.0 KB/s up
Scope sits in your menu bar, and one click opens its Network panel.

Latency in one click

The last test’s idle latency sits under the speed meters, with the time it ran. Click it for one plain sentence on what it means.

Scope's Internet speed test on Studio: Download 935.3 Mbps, Upload 117.6 Mbps, 11 ms latency
11 ms of latency on a quiet connection, the same as networkQuality.

Delay when it’s busy

A plain ping on a quiet connection doesn’t show this. Scope tests download, then upload, one after the other, so it gives a responsiveness for each direction and turns it into milliseconds: 60,000 ms ÷ 1410 RPM is about 42.6 ms.

Scope's internet test details: Download responsiveness 1410 RPM, Upload responsiveness 1170 RPM, Latency during download 42.6 ms, Latency during upload 51.3 ms
The delay grows to 42.6 ms while downloading and 51.3 ms while uploading.

Is it the Wi-Fi?

Like the router ping, the signal card checks the first part of the trip: Scope shows the Wi-Fi signal in dBm and in words, apart from the internet test.

Scope shows and explains. It never changes your network or your settings.

Scope's Wi-Fi signal card: Wi-Fi signal is strong, Excellent · −48 dBm, labeled Signal strength · not internet speed
A strong signal, so the Wi-Fi link isn’t adding the delay.
Everything this part of Scope showsMac network monitor: live speed and data per app

Try it here

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Click any item in the menu bar, or a card inside, as you would on your Mac.

Scope Pro Every menu bar item is shown here. Scope Free keeps one whole item of your choice, with every reading inside.

See your own connection’s delay.

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Sources

Last checked October 18, 2026. Readings, apps and files in the pictures are from a made-up Mac.