Download Radio Silence for Mac

In the edit

You are editing a wedding gallery and a rogue app decides to fetch an update, dragging Lightroom to a crawl. Radio Silence sits in the menu bar, shows you every connection your Mac's apps are making, and lets you cut them off with one click.

Good for

• Blocking any installed app from reaching its servers — the Block Application button handles that.
• Seeing which apps are calling out in the Firewall tab and removing them from the block list when you change your mind.
• Pausing the firewall temporarily if you need a particular connection to work.

Keep in mind

• It runs on macOS 10.15 and later, Intel and Apple Silicon.
• Version 3.4 adds installation guidance for macOS Tahoe, better handling of missing permissions and a help view with troubleshooting if the app fails to launch.
• The interface is in English only.

Culling 2,800 RAW files without stuttering

I had a shoot last month that pushed my Mac harder than usual — 2,800 RAW files from a three-day Indian wedding, all needing culling before the couple's preview gallery. Halfway through the first pass, Capture One started stuttering. Not the usual beach-ball-for-a-second stutter, but a proper freeze that made me check Activity Monitor.

Radio Silence was already running in the background, though you wouldn't know it from the menu bar — there's no icon there. I opened the app and saw the Connections list filling up. A dozen entries. Some I expected: Dropbox, Safari, Mail. Others I didn't: a note-taking app I'd opened once three weeks ago, still phoning home, and a font manager checking for updates every few minutes.

I clicked the Block Application button, found the font manager in the list, and blocked it. The Connections view refreshed. That entry disappeared. Capture One didn't suddenly become lightning fast, but the intermittent pauses stopped. I left Dropbox running — I needed uploads for backup — and blocked everything else that wasn't essential to editing.

Later that evening, when I needed to send a file via the font manager's sync feature, I opened Radio Silence, went to the Firewall tab, found the app and removed it from the block list. The connection came back. After the upload, I blocked it again. Whole thing took maybe twenty seconds.

That's the workflow Radio Silence is built for: you don't set it up once and forget it. You check it when things feel off, block what's misbehaving, and unblock when you actually need that app to talk to the internet.

Two settings to tweak before a busy edit

Radio Silence doesn't ship with a long preferences window. There aren't many settings to tweak, which is part of the point. But there are a couple of things worth doing before you rely on it during a busy edit.

Give it the permissions it asks for during installation. Version 3.4 now catches you if you skip a step — the new help view shows up if the app can't launch properly, with troubleshooting info that walks you through the missing permission. If you're on macOS Tahoe, the installation guidance is there to help you through Apple's newer permission system.

Make a habit of checking the Connections list when you start a heavy task. It's not a setting, exactly, but it's the closest thing to a setup step. Open Radio Silence, glance at the list, and block anything that isn't essential before you start editing. You'll learn which apps are chatty and which ones behave.

Remember the pause button exists. If you need a blocked app to connect for a specific task, you can pause the whole firewall temporarily rather than unblocking and re-blocking. Handy for those moments when an app needs to authenticate once and then go back to being quiet.

When the app can't monitor connections

Most issues with Radio Silence come down to permissions or forgetting what you've blocked. Here are the ones I've seen come up.

The app says it can't monitor connections. This usually means the network filter extension didn't install properly. Version 3.4 handles this better than earlier versions, but if you see it, run the installation again and make sure you approve the system extension prompt when macOS shows it. The new help view can guide you through this.

I blocked an app and now it won't load at all. That's the firewall doing its job. Open Radio Silence, switch to the Firewall tab, find the app and remove it from the block list. If the app still won't connect, quit it completely and relaunch — some apps cache their connection state.

I can't find Radio Silence in the menu bar. That's by design. The app doesn't put an icon there. You open it from the Applications folder, Spotlight, or wherever you keep your utilities. Some people pin it to the Dock for quicker access.

I paused the firewall but an app still won't connect. The pause is temporary and should let all connections through. If one app is still blocked, check the Firewall tab to see if it's listed there. A paused firewall doesn't remove blocks — it just stops enforcing them. Sometimes an app needs a restart to pick up the change.

I updated macOS and Radio Silence stopped working. Version 3.4 was updated with macOS Tahoe in mind, so if you're on that version, you should be covered. For older macOS versions, make sure you're on the latest release of Radio Silence. If the app fails to launch after an OS update, the help view that appears will show you what's wrong.

Will Radio Silence slow down your Mac?

Will Radio Silence slow down my Mac?

No. It's a lightweight network monitor, not a heavy security suite. It sits in the background and watches for connections. The only time you'll notice it is when you open the window to see what's happening. The blocking itself is instant — you click the button and the connection stops.

Does it replace a full firewall?

Not really. Radio Silence is an app-level firewall. It lets you decide which applications can access the internet. It doesn't filter by port, protocol, or IP address the way a network-level firewall does. Think of it as a supplement to macOS's built-in firewall, not a replacement. You use it when you want to stop a specific app from calling home.

Can I block system processes?

Radio Silence shows you connections from all running processes, including system ones. Whether you should block them is another question. The app gives you the information and the button; what you do with it is up to you. Most people stick to blocking third-party apps.

What happens when I update a blocked app?

If you've blocked an app, it can't check for updates. That might be what you want — some photographers prefer to approve updates manually rather than letting apps decide when to download. When you're ready to update, unblock the app, run the update, then block it again. The whole process takes a few seconds.

Does it work with apps that use helper tools or background processes?

Yes. Radio Silence sees connections from the main app and its helper processes. If you block an app, its helpers can't connect either. This is useful for apps that spawn background updaters you didn't know existed — you'll see them in the Connections list and can block them there.

Can I use it alongside other network tools?

Generally yes, as long as the other tools don't install their own network filter extensions that conflict with Radio Silence. If you already have a system extension that filters network traffic, check that both can coexist. In practice, most people run Radio Silence alongside Little Snitch or similar tools without issues, but every setup is different.

New this release

• Installation guidance for macOS Tahoe.
• Better handling for installation errors and missing permissions.
• New help view with troubleshooting info if the app fails to launch.

Mac it needs

• macOS 10.15 or later
• Intel or Apple Silicon