How do I forget a wireless network on my Mac?

By default, Macs have a nice habit of remembering every wireless network you ever join, whether it's six months ago or 17 minutes earlier. This is usually no problem, except sometimes you can get into a situation where it detects one network faster than another and without asking you automatically connects to the wrong 802.11 net.

There are two ways to fix this problem, both of which are done at the very same spot in the Mac OS X system: System Preferences --> Network --> Airport.

You can get to that spot from the Apple menu, of course, but I prefer actually taking a shortcut:

The last item is the shortcut. It's fast and it takes you directly to:

The solution isn't on this screen, however. You need to click on "Advanced...":

That's the ticket!

If you want to tweak things so that one network is selected in preference to another when both are present, you can simply click and drag the names of the networks to the order you prefer. For example, you might want to have your home network the top priority so that if it's ever around, you're connected instantly.

If you'd rather just axe networks that you don't want, that aren't relevant anymore or that are from your neighbor, simply click once to select the specified network then click on the "-" button. Poof! Gone.

Finally, if you'd rather that your Mac OS X system didn't automatically remember every single wireless wifi 802.11 network you join, simply uncheck "Remember any network this computer has joined."

When you're done tweaking and fiddling, just click "Okay" and close the System Preferences window.

Done!