Download WifiMapper for Android

No account needed. Install the app, press Start, and walk. WifiMapper scans every WiFi network your phone can hear, records where it heard it, and draws the whole thing on a map on the device. Nothing leaves the phone unless you later choose to upload it.

Why isn't this on the Play Store?

It will be - we're in the process of getting WifiMapper through Google Play's app review and developer verification, which takes time for a new publisher. Rather than wait on that before anyone can use the app, we're hosting the signed APK directly here in the meantime. Once the Play Store listing is live, this page will switch to it automatically.

Installing it

Because it's not from the Play Store yet, Android will ask you to approve the install the first time.

1. Download the file

   Tap the button above on your phone. Android saves it to your Downloads folder.

2. Open it and allow the install

   Tap the downloaded file. Android will warn that your browser isn't allowed to install apps yet and offer a settings toggle - allow it for your browser, then come back and tap Install. This is the standard prompt for any app installed outside the Play Store.

3. Grant location permission

   Android only reports nearby WiFi networks to an app that holds location permission, and WifiMapper needs your position anyway to put readings on a map. Without it there is nothing to map.

What you can do without an account

• Scan continuously at whatever interval you choose while you walk a site.
• See every point you scanned from on a map, on the phone.
• Pick any SSID and see its samples sized by signal strength, so you can tell roughly where that access point sits.
• Keep mapping across days - samples are stored on the device and accumulate until you clear them.

What an account adds

A free account is only worth creating if you want your samples off the phone: stored in the cloud so they survive losing or replacing the device, drawn on a full-size map in a browser, and kept as a history you can compare over time. You can install the app now and decide about that later - nothing is uploaded until you enter credentials and press Upload.

How WifiMapper works Plans and pricing

Permissions it asks for, and why

• Location - to place each reading on the map, and because Android requires it before it will list nearby WiFi networks at all.
• WiFi state - to read the scan results themselves.
• Notifications and foreground service - so scanning keeps running with the screen off, with a notification showing while it does.
• Internet - used only when you upload to an account. Skip the account and it goes unused.

WifiMapper never joins the networks it maps, so it never needs their passwords, and it reads only what access points broadcast publicly. See the privacy policy for what is stored and for how long.