How do I find out the name of the SSID I'm connected to from the command line?

iwgetid provides the ssid

iwgetid -r gives just the name.

In a Bash script try something like myssid=$(iwgetid -r) to put it in a variable

Run nm-tool | grep \*. That should show just the line with the SSID you are connected to.

Edit: The nm-tool utility had ceased to exist, so in 16.04 and newer releases, please use any of the methods suggested by my esteemed colleagues below.

For example: nmcli -t -f active,ssid dev wifi | egrep '^yes' | cut -d\' -f2 works well.

Although the question has already been answered, the iwconfig tool does display the ESSID of the currently connected Wifi network. Perhaps it does not work with connections managed through NetworkManager but it works with interfaces managed through ifup/ifdown:

iwconfig | grep wlan0

lists:

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"ahoi"

None of the prior answers worked for me unfortunately. I was however able to get the details via

$ sudo iw dev wlan0 info

and got

Interface wlan0
    ifindex 5
    wdev 0x1
    addr **:**:*:*:*:*
    ssid *****
    type AP
    wiphy 0
    channel 2 (2417 MHz), width: 20 MHz, center1: 2417 MHz

You can also use the iw tool (from the iw package) to obtain the WiFi link parameters which includes the currently associated SSID - e.g for wlan0:

iw dev wlan0 link

nmcli -t -f name connection show --active

shows the same output without listing all available SSIDs in vicinity so without delay. if more network interfaces are available and active can be parsed by interface name like so:

nmcli -t -f name,device connection show --active | grep wlp3s0 | cut -d\: -f1

simply use this command to get only the ssid "NAME"

iw dev wlan0 info | grep ssid | awk '{print $2}'

Where wlan0 is the interface for your Wi-Fi card. Check it in ifconfig or iwconfig.

The output is only the "ssid name" of the network you connected...