The menu bar item
What the menu bar item shows in each of its five styles, including the meter, the traffic history graph, counters, badges and colour.
Outbound lives in the menu bar. Click the item to open the menu bar panel. The look of the item is set in Settings › Menu Bar. Traffic colours and rate units live on other settings pages, named below.
Menu bar shows
Section titled “Menu bar shows”Menu bar shows has five styles. The default is Status capsule with graph and rates.
- Status capsule with graph and rates: a capsule with the upload rate above the download rate, and a six-bar meter.
- Icon, graph and upload/download rates: the shield, the same two rates, and the meter.
- Icon and traffic graph: the shield and the meter, with no rate numbers.
- Icon and traffic history (last 2 minutes): the shield and a graph of the last two minutes of traffic for the whole Mac, in 24 columns of five seconds each. Upload rises above a centre line and download falls below it, on the same scale as the meter, so a short burst stays in view after the meter has gone quiet.
- Icon only: the shield on its own. This style draws no meter, no rates, no TODAY or BLOCKED counters, and no live world.
On the first three styles, the meter is six bars of the combined rate, with an upload dot above a download dot. A dot lights from 1,000 bytes a second in that direction. A bar lights as the combined rate passes 1,000, 100,000, 500,000, 1,000,000, 5,000,000 and 20,000,000 bytes a second. Each lit bar splits upload over download in the traffic colours.
While the filter is on and not paused, the shield is a checkmark. Otherwise it is the filter’s own symbol: an empty shield when the filter is off, a half-filled shield while macOS is waiting for approval, a filled shield while the filter is on but paused, and a shield with an exclamation mark when the filter is not installed.
Today and blocked
Section titled “Today and blocked”Two counters can sit beside the meter. Both stay off until you turn them on, and Icon only leaves both out. Their switches are disabled in that style.
- Show today’s data: one total of the bytes sent and received since midnight, under the caption TODAY. Outbound recounts it every 15 seconds.
- Show blocked today: how many destinations were blocked today, under the caption BLOCKED. With colour on, the number is red when the count is above zero. Outbound recounts it every 15 seconds.
Badges
Section titled “Badges”Warn when protection is off is on by default. A warning badge appears when protection is off or the filter is missing.
While the connection alert window is minimised and connections are waiting, the item shows that count. Past 99 the badge reads 99+.
Flash when a connection is blocked
Section titled “Flash when a connection is blocked”Flash when a connection is blocked is off by default. With it on, a block flashes the item for 0.6 seconds, and a new flash waits at least one second.
Colour and rates
Section titled “Colour and rates”Show the status in colour is on by default. The setting’s own words: off draws the icon in the menu bar’s own monochrome, as most Mac utilities do. A warning badge appears when protection is off or the filter is missing. Preview draws the current item on a light background and a dark one.
Charts and this meter use Traffic colours in Settings › Appearance. The default pair is Orange and Blue (upload orange, download blue). The other pairs are Magenta and Blue, Orange and Teal, Pink and Cyan, and Mint and Blue.
Show rates in, on Settings › General, is Bytes per second (KB/s) or Bits per second (kbit/s).
Keeping the Mac cool
Section titled “Keeping the Mac cool”The meter redraws once a second. While Outbound is running efficiently it redraws every other second. Automatic is the default: Outbound runs efficiently on a Mac with 8 GB of memory or less, in Low Power Mode, when the Mac is hot, or when macOS reports memory pressure. At setup, and again under Settings › Labs › Performance, the choices are Automatic, Always efficient and Always full quality. Protection does not change with this choice.