Wireshark’s main menu is located either at the top of the main window (Windows, Linux) or at the top of your main screen (macOS). An example is shown in Figure 3.2, “The Menu”.
![[Note]](images/note.svg) | Note |
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Some menu items will be disabled (greyed out) if the corresponding feature isn’t available. For example, you cannot save a capture file if you haven’t captured or loaded any packets. |
The main menu contains the following items:
- This menu contains items to open and merge capture files, save, print, or export capture files in whole or in part, and to quit the Wireshark application. See Section 3.5, “The “File” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to find a packet, time reference or mark one or more packets, handle configuration profiles, and set your preferences; (cut, copy, and paste are not presently implemented). See Section 3.6, “The “Edit” Menu”.
- This menu controls the display of the captured data, including colorization of packets, zooming the font, showing a packet in a separate window, expanding and collapsing trees in packet details, …. See Section 3.7, “The “View” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to go to a specific packet. See Section 3.8, “The “Go” Menu”.
- This menu allows you to start and stop captures and to edit capture filters. See Section 3.9, “The “Capture” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to manipulate display filters, enable or disable the dissection of protocols, configure user specified decodes and follow a TCP stream. See Section 3.10, “The “Analyze” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to display various statistic windows, including a summary of the packets that have been captured, display protocol hierarchy statistics and much more. See Section 3.11, “The “Statistics” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to display various telephony related statistic windows, including a media analysis, flow diagrams, display protocol hierarchy statistics and much more. See Section 3.12, “The “Telephony” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to display Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11 wireless statistics.
- This menu contains various tools available in Wireshark, such as creating Firewall ACL Rules. See Section 3.14, “The “Tools” Menu”.
- This menu contains items to help the user, e.g., access to some basic help, manual pages of the various command line tools, online access to some of the webpages, and the usual about dialog. See Section 3.15, “The “Help” Menu”.
Each of these menu items is described in more detail in the sections that follow.
![[Tip]](images/tip.svg) | Shortcuts make life easier |
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Most common menu items have keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can press the Control and the K keys together to open the “Capture Options” dialog. |