NetPulse
User Guide — Version 2.2.0
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.
- Data usage — how much you’ve downloaded and uploaded today and this month, per adapter or in total, on the Dashboard and the History page. Set your plan’s billing day in Settings so “this month” matches your bill.
- Per-adapter history — chart a single adapter on the History page.
- Smarter alerts — one notification when a rule triggers, optional reminders while it holds, and a message when it clears. New alerts for a disconnected adapter, ping latency and loss, and data used.
- In totals — leave virtual adapters out of the totals on the Interfaces page.
- Start with Windows now works in the Microsoft Store version.
The full list is in the changelog.
Contents
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, the busiest network adapter, and how much data has been used today and this month (download + upload, with the split underneath). 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 as a bar, link speed, IP address, MAC address, MTU and the error count (packets with errors, in and out, since the adapter came up). 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.
The In totals checkbox decides whether an adapter counts towards the machine-wide figures — the dashboard, the status bar, history and All interfaces alert rules. Untick it for virtual adapters (Hyper-V or WSL vEthernet, VPN adapters) that carry the same traffic as your real network card, or the totals will count that traffic twice.
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.
- Export CSV saves exactly what you can see — the current filter and sort order.
Right-click any row
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Copy row | Puts the whole row on the clipboard |
| Copy remote address | Just the far-end IP address |
| Resolve host name | Looks up the remote address and fills in the Host column |
| Filter by this process | Sets the filter box to that process name |
| End process… | Terminates the owning process, after asking you to confirm |
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 and, where the router has one, its host name. Click Stop trace to end it early.
While the continuous ping is running, its latency and loss can drive alert rules (see Alerts).
7. History
Trends over time, read back from data NetPulse saves automatically. Pick a range — from the last 15 minutes up to the last 365 days; only ranges your retention setting covers are offered — to see download/upload throughput across that period. Refresh reloads the latest.
Use the Adapter picker to chart a single network adapter instead of All adapters (totals).
NetPulse saves the average throughput every 5 seconds. Long ranges are averaged further so the chart stays fast; the count next to the range shows how many points are drawn.
Data usage
The Data usage panel on the right shows, for the adapter you picked (or the total):
- This month (or this period, if you set a billing day in Settings) — data used since the period began, with the download/upload split.
- Today.
- A day-by-day table of the last 31 days.
Export
- Export CSV saves every stored sample in the selected range, unaveraged.
- Export PNG saves the chart as an image.
How long history is kept is set in Settings — seven days by default.
8. Alerts
Set rules that notify you when a metric crosses a limit.
To add a rule
- Choose a metric (see the table below).
- For Download, Upload and Link up, optionally choose which adapter to watch — leave it on All interfaces for the machine-wide total.
- Choose > or < and enter a threshold.
- Optionally set for — how many seconds the condition must hold before the rule triggers, so a brief spike doesn’t alert you — and remind every — how many minutes between reminders while it keeps holding (0 to be told only once).
- Leave Notify when cleared ticked to get a “Resolved” message when it’s over.
- Tick the channels to notify: Toast (desktop notification), Email, Webhook or Pushover.
- Click Add rule.
Metrics
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Download / Upload | Throughput in Kbps, machine-wide or for one adapter |
| Link up | 1 while an adapter is connected, 0 when it is down or unplugged — use Link up < 1 on an adapter to be told when it drops. On All interfaces it is the number of adapters that are up. |
| Active TCP connections, Total connections, TCP errors/s, UDP errors/s | Machine-wide, IPv4 and IPv6 together |
| Data used today / this month (period) | In GB — e.g. > 900 to be warned before a 1 TB monthly cap |
| Ping latency / Ping loss % | From the Probes page’s continuous ping, only while it is running |
Rules are listed below and can be toggled on/off, edited in place or removed; changes are saved automatically. The Recent alerts panel shows what has fired, what has cleared, and any notification that could not be sent (for example, an email server that refused the message). Test alert sends a test through every channel you’ve configured so you can confirm delivery.
9. Settings
Where you set up how NetPulse runs, and how alerts reach you.
Startup and sampling
- Start NetPulse when I sign in to Windows — adds NetPulse to your own Windows startup items. It applies to your account only and needs no administrator rights. If you later turn NetPulse off under Settings › Apps › Startup in Windows, turn it back on there — NetPulse’s Settings page tells you when that has happened.
- Start minimised to the notification area — opens straight to the tray, without showing the window.
- Poll every — how often NetPulse samples, from 1 to 60 seconds. A longer interval uses less CPU; the charts and rates stay correct either way. Takes effect immediately.
- Keep history for — how long saved samples are retained, from 1 to 365 days. Anything older is removed automatically. (Daily data-usage totals are kept for 400 days regardless.)
- Usage month starts on day — the day of the month your data plan’s billing period starts (1–28). “This month” on the dashboard, the History usage panel and the usage alerts then count from that day.
Email (SMTP)
Enter your mail server, pick a Connection type, and fill in your credentials and the From/To addresses (several To addresses can be separated by commas or semicolons):
- 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 an incoming-webhook URL and pick its Format:
- Slack — Slack, Mattermost, Google Chat and Teams’ older incoming-webhook connectors
- Discord — Discord channel webhooks
- Generic — a JSON object with the title, message, value, kind and time, for your own service or tools like Power Automate, n8n or Home Assistant
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.
If the settings file is ever damaged, NetPulse starts with defaults and keeps a copy of the damaged file next to it (settings.json.unreadable-….bak) in %LocalAppData%\NetPulse.
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.
Only one copy of NetPulse runs at a time. Starting it again while it is in the tray simply brings the existing window back.
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.
- Right-click a connection to act on it — resolve it, copy it, or end the process.
- Alerts and connection settings are saved automatically and remembered between runs.
- To leave NetPulse running all the time, turn on both startup options in Settings.
- On a metered connection, set your billing day and add a Data used this month alert a little below your cap.
- If you use Hyper-V, WSL or a VPN, untick In totals for the virtual adapters so your traffic isn’t counted twice.
- NetPulse follows your Windows light/dark setting automatically.