I need to run the ‘Speedtest’ app on my MacBook every thirty minutes. I’m sure I used to be able to do this with Automater. But having a look at it now, I can’t work out how to do it.

I know you can do it with CRON through terminal but that means messing about with Python or something and I’m not going there. It’s just a quick and dirty solution to see if a new SIM broadband install we have is actually any better than our current one.

Any advice welcome!

The really lo-fi solution, in a Terminal:

while true; do /Applications/Speedtest.app && sleep 1800; done

But you can do it without typing in Automator. Create a new Application, then:

– Launch Application (pick Speedtest)
– Pause (for 30 minutes)
– Loop (select loop automatically, and you need to specify a timeout to avoid infinite loops, so put something like 1000 times)

Press Run, and it will start Speedtest every 30 minutes. This assumes that speedtest does a test when it starts. You might need to put a Quit Application before Launch if it only does a test when it is launched, otherwise you’ll have to quit it by hand.

are you aware of the new “networkQuality” tool in Monterey?

you could schedule it via Cron, or run via Automator as a Shell Script, with output to text file, for example

How To Test Mac Internet Speed In Terminal (macOS Monterey)

Ah thanks, that makes sense. Got that working but realised that Speedtest needs me to hit go. So I did a ‘watch me’ and it works but then automator says it can’t complete the action. I tried changing timeouts but no joy.

Thanks Zilog.. will take a look now.