Is there a way to put WiFi in a passive mode on a wired iMac?

[zorinlynx]

My iMac is wired directly to a gigabit switch, so I don't need to actually use my home WiFi network from it.

But some services like MacOS location services, airdrop and so on need WiFi on to work. Now you'd think I could just not join my network from the iMac, right? But no, that's a no-go because the network details sync over via iCloud Keychain, and it joins anyway.

Hrumph.

So I have to turn off WiFi and manually turn it on when I need to Airdrop something. Pretty freaking annoying.

Is there a way to configure the WiFi interface on the iMac to be passive and not join any networks, ever, no matter what, for all eternity? I've done some research but can't find jack ****. Turning off iCloud Keychain isn't an option because it's too useful for everything else it does!

 

[X--X]

The key is, your wifi and your wired internet need to be the same network, not separate ones.

If your wired network is the same as the wifi, you don't need to be connected via wifi for airdrop and other stuff to work.
Wifi just needs to be turned on. Just go to system preferences and turn off "automatically join this network" for wifi and disconnect from it, or you could even choose "forget network".

As an alternative just reordering services should also work. In the network settings sidebar via gear icon -> Set Service Oder. If the wired connection is ordered higher it will only use the wired connection, even if connected to a wifi network.