ConnectMeNow is a free macOS menu-bar utility that lets you connect to and disconnect from network shares — AFP, SMB, FTP, NFS, and more — in a single click, without digging through Finder's Connect to Server dialog every time.
What is ConnectMeNow?
ConnectMeNow is a lightweight Mac app that lives in your menu bar and manages persistent connections to network volumes. Developed by Tweaking4All, it stores all your network share credentials and mount points so that reconnecting after a reboot, a VPN switch, or a momentary network drop takes one click rather than a three-step Finder dance.
Version 4 brought a complete rewrite — native Swift, cleaner UI, and Apple Silicon support — making it feel at home on both Intel and M-series Macs. If you've ever found yourself re-typing a server address at 9 a.m. because the office NAS forgot your session overnight, ConnectMeNow solves exactly that problem.
What does ConnectMeNow do best?
ConnectMeNow's standout strength is frictionless re-mounting: configure a share once, and from that point on it's always one menu-bar click away. No Finder windows, no ⌘K, no typing credentials again.
- Multi-protocol support: AFP, SMB, CIFS, FTP, SFTP, NFS, and WebDAV shares all live in the same list.
- Credential storage: passwords are held in macOS Keychain, so you never paste them again.
- Auto-connect on launch: flag any share to mount automatically at login — useful for a home NAS or a media server you treat as a permanent drive.
- Grouped shares: v4 lets you organise entries into groups, handy if you toggle between a home server, an office NAS, and a client VPN share regularly.
- Connect All / Disconnect All: one-tap bulk actions when you're leaving the office or firing up the home lab.
I use it daily with a Synology NAS over SMB and a remote SFTP archive, and I genuinely cannot remember the last time I manually mounted either of them.
Is ConnectMeNow free?
Yes — ConnectMeNow is free to download directly from Tweaking4All's website. There is no trial gate, no nag screen, and no subscription. The developer accepts optional donations but the full feature set is available to everyone at no cost.
You can also install it via Homebrew Cask (brew install --cask connectmenow), which is handy for teams managing Mac fleets.
Who should use ConnectMeNow?
Anyone who mounts network shares more than once a week should have this in their menu bar. That includes home-lab enthusiasts with a NAS, developers who mount remote staging volumes over SFTP, videographers pulling footage from a shared SAN, and IT admins who connect to a handful of different file servers throughout the day.
If you're a casual user who only occasionally accesses a single Time Capsule, macOS's built-in "Connect to Server" dialog (⌘K in Finder) plus Keychain is probably enough. ConnectMeNow pays for itself in saved seconds once you're managing three or more shares across different protocols.
What are the best ConnectMeNow alternatives?
The closest direct alternative is Mountain (Appgineers), which covers similar share-mounting territory but adds a paid tier for advanced automation and a polished UI that some users prefer. Network Radar is broader — it scans your LAN and manages devices — but it costs more and does more than most people need for simple mounting. Finder itself covers the basics for free, and marking servers as favourites in the Locations sidebar gets surprisingly far if your needs are simple. For SMB-only power users, Commander One bundles remote connections inside a dual-pane file manager, which may or may not suit your workflow.
ConnectMeNow wins on the combination of being free, protocol-agnostic, and genuinely minimal — it doesn't try to be a network scanner or a file manager, it just keeps your shares a click away.
How well does ConnectMeNow work on Apple Silicon?
Version 4 runs natively on Apple Silicon (M1 through M5) and Intel Macs alike. The v4 rewrite left behind the older Objective-C codebase, so there's no Rosetta translation overhead, and the menu-bar footprint stays tiny — I've never seen it register above 0.1 % CPU at idle.
