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Question

Forget WiFi Greyed Out - Locked for all macs

  • May 7, 2025
  • 3 replies
  • 416 views
miniberry
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Hi everyone, 

We're an EDU and I have the WiFi Configuration profile scoped to devices to ensure that we have the correct cert. I don't have any configuration profiles (to my knowledge) that would lock down settings in Network WiFi to where you cannot forget the network. However, I'm seeing on all my devices that it is greyed out and says "this option is not available because this network was joined via a managed profile". 
I have tried several different ways to remove it. The only one that worked was this command via terminal using an elevated admin account 

networksetup -removepreferredwirelessnetwork en0 GOODBYE_NETWORK_NAME

I am probably missing something so I would appreciate any hints as to where to look to manage this and apply to all one to one macs in my environment. 

Thank you!

    3 replies

    AJPinto
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    • AJPinto
    • Legendary Contributor
    • May 8, 2025

    If the network is deployed with a Configuration Profile macOS will not allow you to remove it using the GUI. You can exclude the device from the Configuration Profile and delete the network remanence in the keychain if you need to delete it for some reason. 

     

    As far as being able to remove the network in terminal, a lot of Configuration Profiles can be bypassed with Terminal. Another example of this is being able to disable Gatekeeper with Terminal, even if it's force enabled with a Configuration Profile. More or less it's the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, and not all of Apples teams are paying attention to what the MDM team is doing.

     

    miniberry
    earnyogi
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    • earnyogi
    • New Contributor
    • May 8, 2025

    yup

    miniberry
    miniberry
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    • miniberry
    • Author
    • Contributor
    • May 8, 2025

    If the network is deployed with a Configuration Profile macOS will not allow you to remove it using the GUI. You can exclude the device from the Configuration Profile and delete the network remanence in the keychain if you need to delete it for some reason. 

     

    As far as being able to remove the network in terminal, a lot of Configuration Profiles can be bypassed with Terminal. Another example of this is being able to disable Gatekeeper with Terminal, even if it's force enabled with a Configuration Profile. More or less it's the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, and not all of Apples teams are paying attention to what the MDM team is doing.

     


    Thank you! 🙏 That is good to know!

    Regarding the specific network being locked in (not able to "forget network") because it's scoped via a config profile, I don't remember this being the case in the past (though I am a new admin) but it seems like a year or two ago, even though we had the same type of WiFi Configuration profile where we added the cert, it did not lock it on devices to where you couldn't forget the network...is this a new macOS thing I missed? 

    Thank you again for the input!

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