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NetPulse

User Guide

NetPulse is a network monitoring app for Windows. It shows, in real time, what your computer's network is doing — traffic levels, active connections, link quality — keeps a history of it, and can alert you when something crosses a limit you set.

It works the same on a desktop PC and on a Windows Server (just open it over Remote Desktop). It only ever monitors the machine it's running on.

Contents
  1. Getting started
  2. Dashboard
  3. Protocols
  4. Interfaces
  5. Connections
  6. Probes
  7. History
  8. Alerts
  9. Settings
  10. System tray
  11. Tips

1. Getting started

When you open NetPulse it appears centered on your screen. The left side is the navigation pane — click an item to switch sections. The app starts monitoring immediately; there's nothing to configure to see live data.

2. Dashboard

Your at-a-glance overview. Cards show current download and upload speed, the number of active TCP connections, the total connections, and the busiest network adapter. The chart shows total throughput over the last minute, and the panel on the right shows the latest alert status.

3. Protocols

Four live charts for the core network protocols:

  • TCP — active connections, failed connection attempts, errors.
  • UDP — incoming, outgoing and error packets per second.
  • IP — received, delivered, in-error and discarded packets per second.
  • ICMP — message, error and echo (ping) counts.

Use the Show IPv6 checkbox (top right) to switch the TCP/UDP/IP charts between IPv4 and IPv6. Each chart keeps the last 60 seconds on screen.

4. Interfaces

A table of your network adapters showing live In / Out / Total speed (in Kbps), utilization %, link speed, IP address, MAC address and MTU. Each row has a small trend graph. Click a column header to sort (for example, by Total to find the busiest adapter). Loopback, tunnel and hidden system adapters are left out.

5. Connections

Every active connection on the machine, in real time, with the process that owns it, its PID, protocol, local and remote address, and state (e.g. Established, Listen).

  • Type in the filter box to narrow the list by process name, address, port or protocol.
  • Untick Show listeners to hide things that are only waiting for connections.
  • The count on the right shows how many rows are currently displayed.

6. Probes

Active connection-quality tests against a target you choose (default 8.8.8.8):

  • Type a host name or IP in the box.
  • Start begins a continuous ping; the cards show current/average/min/max latency, jitter and packet loss, and the chart plots latency over time. Stop ends it.
  • Resolve DNS measures how long it takes to look up the host and lists the addresses.
  • Traceroute lists each network hop between you and the target, with round-trip times.

7. History

Trends over time, read back from data NetPulse saves automatically. Pick a range (last 15 minutes, hour, 24 hours or 7 days) to see download/upload throughput across that period. Refresh reloads the latest. History is kept for 7 days.

8. Alerts

Set rules that notify you when a metric crosses a limit.

To add a rule

  1. Choose a metric (e.g. Download, Active TCP connections, TCP errors/s).
  2. Choose > or < and enter a threshold.
  3. Tick the channels to notify: Toast (desktop notification), Email, Webhook or Pushover.
  4. Click Add rule.

Rules are listed below and can be toggled on/off, edited or removed; they're saved automatically. The Recent alerts panel shows what has fired. Test alert sends a test through every channel you've configured so you can confirm delivery.

To avoid spam, each rule won't fire again for 60 seconds after it triggers.

9. Settings

Where you set up alert delivery.

Email (SMTP)

Enter your mail server, pick a Connection type, and fill in your credentials and the From/To addresses:

  • SMTP — no encryption (port 25)
  • SMTPS — SSL/TLS (port 465)
  • Submission — STARTTLS (port 587)
  • Custom — lets you type any port

The port is set for you for the standard choices, and becomes editable when you pick Custom.

Webhook

Paste a Slack or Microsoft Teams incoming-webhook URL.

Pushover

Enter your Pushover API token and user/group key.

Click Save to store your settings, or Send test to save and immediately send a test to all configured channels. The result line shows ✓ or ✗ for each one.

10. System tray

NetPulse lives in the system tray (notification area):

  • Minimizing the window sends it to the tray instead of the taskbar.
  • Double-click the tray icon to bring the window back.
  • Right-click the tray icon for Open, About and Exit.

Closing the window also keeps the app running in the tray — choose Exit from the tray menu to quit completely. While in the tray, alert notifications still appear.

You can also open About NetPulse from the button at the bottom of the navigation pane.

11. Tips

  • Sort the Interfaces or Connections tables by clicking a column header.
  • On a server, run NetPulse over Remote Desktop; it monitors that server's own network.
  • Alerts and connection settings are saved automatically and remembered between runs.