Airplane Mode on Mac

You’ve likely used airplane mode on your iPhone at least once. If you’ve taken a flight anywhere over the past decade, you will have been reminded to activate it before takeoff to comply with aircraft safety regulations. But how do you turn on airplane mode on a Mac if you want to use your laptop during a flight?

In this guide, we’ll explain what this feature does and how you can activate airplane mode on a Mac the next time you want to use your Apple computer in the air.

Before we start:

 

Whenever you travel anywhere with your MacBook Pro, it’s a good idea to ensure you have plenty of storage space for your trip. One of the easiest and most effective ways to do that is with MacKeeper Safe Cleanup, which removes all unnecessary junk from your machine.

 

Here’s how to use it:

1. Download and install MacKeeper.
2. Choose Safe Cleanup in the MacKeeper sidebar.
3. Click Start Scan to find all system junk that’s safe to delete.
4. Select the files you want to remove, then click Clean Junk Files.

What is airplane mode?

Airplane mode is a safety feature on modern electronic devices, particularly smartphones and tablets, that disables wireless radios that could interfere with critical aircraft equipment. You will be asked to enable the feature before takeoff to reduce the risk of communication issues during the flight.

What does airplane mode do?

On iPhones and iPads, as well as other modern electronics like Windows laptops, airplane mode disables all wireless communications except Bluetooth and GPS. In other words, it turns off cellular and Wi-Fi connectivity so you can’t make calls, send messages, or browse the web.

If the airline you’re flying with allows it, you can enable Wi-Fi in airplane mode to take advantage of inflight internet. Conversely, you can also choose to disable Bluetooth manually if you’re not using it. Whatever configuration you choose, your device should remember it.

Does MacBook have airplane mode?

Many users wonder if Macs have airplane mode since they’re so used to enabling it on other Apple devices when they travel. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent flight mode on Mac that you can activate in a few clicks. Instead, you must disable wireless features when traveling if necessary.

Is flight mode important on a Mac?

Although MacBooks don’t offer cellular connectivity, it’s important to disable other wireless features when they’re not in use to prevent them from interfering with flight equipment. If there is no inflight Wi-Fi, or you’re not going to be using any Bluetooth devices, there’s no need to have them enabled.

Another benefit to disabling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on your Mac during a flight is that it saves battery life.

How to turn on airplane mode on Mac

You can create your own equivalent to airplane mode on Mac by manually disabling wireless connectivity features before a flight or when you’re not using them. As Mac computers don’t have cellular connectivity built-in, this includes turning off Wi-Fi and Bluetooth in System Settings or by using the toggles in Control Center. You may also choose to disable location services for even greater efficiency.

Let’s take a closer look at how to put MacBook on airplane mode manually:

1. Turn off Wi-Fi
2. Turn off location services
3. Disable Bluetooth

1. Turn off Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi isn't available on many flights, particularly if they’re short-haul. Even when it is, it can be costly to use. Though it’s considered safe to leave Wi-Fi on, we recommend disabling it if you’re not using it anyway, which helps prevent potential interference and saves battery life. Here’s how:

1. Open System Settings on your Mac, then select Wi-Fi in the sidebar.
2. Click the toggle text to Wi-Fi to disable it.

An even faster way to toggle Wi-Fi on Mac is to click the Control Center icon in the menu bar next to the time and date, then select the Wi-Fi icon. Try this if you find your MacBook not automatically connecting to Wi-Fi after it’s been disabled.

2. Turn off location services

It’s not essential that you disable location services on Mac during a flight. In fact, if you disable Wi-Fi, location services won’t work anyway since Macs don’t have GPS. Nevertheless, turning off location services in the Privacy & Security settings on Mac can improve efficiency, so try this:

1. In System Settings, select Privacy & Security from the sidebar.
2. Click Location Services, then click the toggle next to Location Services to disable them.
3. If prompted, enter your Mac’s password to confirm.

3. Disable Bluetooth

You can use Bluetooth on your Mac during a flight if you want to—it’s perfectly safe—but again, we recommend turning it off if you don’t need it. Here’s how:

1. In System Settings, select Bluetooth.
2. Click the toggle next to Bluetooth to disable it.

You can also toggle Bluetooth in the Control Center, which is handy when you find Bluetooth not working on Mac. Click the Control Center icon in the menu bar, then select the Bluetooth logo.

A hint from our experience: 

 

Connectivity issues can also be caused by corrupt cache files. You can remove these, as well as other unnecessary junk that could be eating up lots of storage space on your Mac, with MacKeeper’s Safe Cleanup:

1. Select Safe Cleanup in MacKeeper, then click Start Scan to identify all junk files.
2. Choose the files you want to remove, ensuring you select caches if you’re experiencing issues.
3. Click Clean Junk Files to remove them all from your computer.

How to turn off airplane mode on Mac

When you don’t need to use airplane mode on a Mac, it’s best to leave it disabled since you’ll likely need Wi-Fi and Bluetooth most of the time. Fortunately, it’s easy to re-enable these features by clicking their toggles in System Settings or Control Center.

Conclusion

Mac computers don’t ship with an airplane mode built into macOS, but you can create an equivalent by simply disabling wireless connectivity features manually. You can do this within the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Privacy & Settings menus in System Settings, as explained above.

To free up space on your Mac, remove all unnecessary system junk quickly with Safe Cleanup in MacKeeper. It safely clears old log and cache files, unused language packs, undeleted trash files, and more to free up what could be gigabytes of space. Try it out today.