General settings

The General page holds the everyday choices: the operation mode, approval for broad changes, the background agent, privacy, sounds, backup and removal. Open it with Settings at the bottom of the main window’s sidebar, Outbound Settings… in the menu bar panel, or ⌘,. The same window is the app’s Settings window.

Finding your way in Settings

The Settings window is laid out like System Settings on the Mac.

• The Outbound row at the top of the sidebar shows the app’s icon and its protection status. Click it to open License.
• The other pages follow in groups: General, Alerts, Notifications and Permissions; Trusted, Blocklists, Telemetry, Profiles and DNS; Appearance, Menu Bar, Monitor and Labs; Intelligence, Outbound’s Connections and Security; then Updates and Advanced. A page Outbound can’t offer on this Mac is left out.
• Search, at the top of the sidebar, filters the pages. It matches a page’s title and the words for its controls, in any order, so export, import, backup, uninstall and Touch ID all find this page. When nothing matches, the sidebar shows the system’s no-results view.
• Back and Forward in the toolbar move between the pages you’ve visited.
• Each page opens with its name and a line about what it’s for, and its controls are grouped below. The Help button at the end of a page opens its page in this manual.

Mode

When an app connects: the operation mode, one of Learn, Ask and Strict. The line under the picker explains the chosen mode:

• Learn: “Unknown connections are allowed and recorded for you to review. Your rules still apply.”
• Ask: “Outbound asks before an app makes a new kind of connection. One window, one app at a time.”
• Strict: “Unknown connections are blocked and recorded in Review. Your rules still apply. VPN apps you have installed stay connected; turn this off in Trusted.”

A footer under the section reads “This applies to connections no rule decides.” Modes are covered in Operation modes.

When an organization forces the mode, the picker is disabled and the text reads “This setting is managed by your organization.” Until the filter has confirmed a change, the explanation ends with “The filter has not confirmed this mode yet.” If the filter is still enforcing the previous mode, it ends with “The filter is still in Learn until this change is approved.”, naming the mode still in force.

Protection

Ask for Touch ID or your password before broad changes: on by default. The text under it: “Allowing or blocking one app’s connection never asks. Broad changes do: allowing any app or any destination, removing a blocklist, choosing a looser mode or pausing. Changes made outside Outbound are held until you approve them. Turning this off also needs approval.” See Pausing and turning off the filter.

Background Agent

Background access: a status line, one of “Enabled”, “Needs approval”, “Not enabled” or “Not found”.

• “Needs approval” adds an Open Login Items Settings button and the line “Turn on Outbound under Allow in the Background.” On macOS 27 or later that line is “Turn on Outbound.app under Background App Activity.”
• Any other state but Enabled adds an Enable Background Access button. While it runs the button reads “Enabling…”. When it succeeds, Outbound reports “Background access is on.”
• If enabling fails, the reason appears under the buttons.

Example data.

Ask before quitting the background agent: on by default. It applies to Quit Background Agent in the menu bar panel, which is the agent’s own quit command. Quit Outbound, in the window app, does not ask. The question is titled “Quit the background agent?” with Quit Agent, Cancel, and Don’t ask again. Don’t ask again turns this switch off. The message says your rules keep applying, and that alerts and the menu bar item stay off until you open Outbound, click Start Agent, or log in again. Turning the switch off stores the choice as quit without asking, so Quit Background Agent stops the agent with no question.

Privacy

Hide my connections from other users: off by default. The text under it: “The filter shares only anonymous totals with other accounts on this Mac.” On a Mac with more than one user account, each connection in the Network Monitor shows who made it: System for the Mac’s own services, Another user for someone else’s. With this on, other users see your traffic only as totals, not your apps or destinations. Whether you see other users’ connections at all is Show Connections of Other Users in the Network Monitor’s View menu.

Show rules and apps in Spotlight: “Indexes names on this Mac; connection host history is never indexed.”

Share anonymous crash reports and usage: off unless you turn it on. The text under it: “Off unless you turn it on. When on, Outbound sends crash reports and a few events (launch, version, mode changes) with a random ID. Never the sites or apps on this Mac, addresses, file names or rules.” Every connection Outbound itself makes is listed in Outbound’s own connections, and the fuller telemetry controls are on Telemetry.

Feedback

Play sounds when you allow or block: off by default. A stored choice is kept, including one from an older install.

Play a sound when an alert appears: until you choose, on only while VoiceOver is running. The sound is the system Glass sound, at volume 0.3, and at most once every 3 seconds so a burst of alerts is one chime. VoiceOver reads each new alert aloud whether or not this is on.

The text under the toggles: “A soft click on the trackpad confirms each answer. VoiceOver always reads a new alert aloud. Sounds also follow System Settings › Sound.” The click is separate from the sound switches. Notification sounds follow “Play sounds when you allow or block”, on Notifications.

Backup

When rules cannot be edited, the section shows “Managed by your organization” and the buttons stay off. That covers an organization that forbids rule editing, and a settings lock that protects rule editing.

Back Up… writes your rules, settings and preferences to a file. The line under the buttons: “Save your rules, settings and preferences to move to another Mac or recover from a mistake.” The save panel suggests “Outbound Backup 2026-10-19.outboundbackup”, with today’s date in year-month-day form. When the write finishes, the page reports “Backup saved.” A failure reads “Could not save the backup:” followed by the reason.

Restore… opens a backup file, or a JSON file of the same kind, and shows a sheet titled “Restore Backup?”. The sheet says how many of your rules (managed rules left out of the count) would be replaced by how many from the backup, and when the backup was made. The next line is the difference, in the form “3 added · 1 removed · 2 changed” with the real counts. Then: “Settings and saved preferences will also be restored. Managed rules and setup progress stay on this Mac. Blocklist entries will be downloaded again. Changes that unblock connections need your approval.” Cancel closes the sheet. Restore runs it. When it finishes, the page reports “Backup restored.”

Snapshots before updates: a disclosure group. Closed, it is only the heading. Open, each entry shows its date and time, then a detail line. When the snapshot recorded both builds, that line starts “Build 12 → 13” with the real build numbers. It then gives the rule count (“1 rule” or “12 rules”). A file that cannot be decoded says “Unreadable”, and its Restore… button stays off. An empty list reads “Outbound saves a snapshot before each update.” Restore… on a snapshot uses the same sheet as a backup file. A snapshot that fails to open reports “This snapshot could not be read:” and the reason.

The command line can do the same: see backup. After an update you did not ask for, a snapshot is the way back; see Updating Outbound.

Remove Outbound

Also delete rules, settings and connection history: off by default. The button is Remove Outbound…. It stays off while a removal is running, after one has finished, and when rules cannot be edited.

Removing Outbound for every user

On a Mac with more than one account, an administrator can remove Outbound’s data for everyone:

• Also remove system data and other users’ data: off by default. On, the page says: “Administrator approval is required. Every local user’s Outbound data and the system’s sealed audit log will be removed.” Review every cleanup path opens the exact list of folders that would be deleted, for every local account and for the system. Removal can’t start until that list is ready, and it deletes only the paths on it.
• Export the sealed audit log before deleting data: choose a folder with Choose Export Folder…. Outbound copies the sealed audit log there and checks the copy before anything is deleted. “If export or verification fails, no data will be deleted.”

The work is done by a small cleanup helper that comes with Outbound. macOS may ask you to approve it in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions first. Each removal then asks for an administrator’s name and password.

After removal, a checklist shows each path that was removed and any that needs attention, with a way to try again. outboundctl uninstall --dry-run --all-users prints the same list of paths from Terminal and changes nothing.

The confirmation dialog is titled “Remove Outbound from this Mac?”. The destructive button reads “Remove Outbound”, or “Remove Outbound and Delete Its Data” when the delete switch is on. With the switch off, the message is “The network filter, its System Settings entry and the background agent will be removed. Rules and settings are kept.” With it on: “The network filter, its System Settings entry, the background agent, and all rules, settings and history will be removed. The administrator audit log is kept.”

While removal runs, four steps appear, each with a symbol for how it stands:

Step	Symbol
Turn off the network filter	Empty circle while waiting, dotted circle while running, checkmark when it succeeded, minus when skipped, x when it failed, circular arrow when macOS needs a restart
Remove the filter from System Settings	Same
Stop the background agent	Same
Delete rules, settings and history	Same. A minus when the earlier steps succeeded and the delete switch is off

A step that does not succeed stops the later steps, which stay waiting. The footer: “Removing the filter stops protection; rules stay unless you choose to delete them.”

When the steps finish, the page says “Outbound’s filter and background agent are removed. Move the app to the Trash to finish.” and offers Move Outbound to the Trash and Quit. While that runs the button reads “Moving to Trash…”, and Outbound quits only once the Trash has the app. If the move fails, the window stays open with “Outbound couldn’t be moved to the Trash:” and the reason, then “Drag Outbound to the Trash in Finder, then quit it.” and Show in Finder.

Uninstalling is also covered in Uninstalling Outbound, and the command line’s version on uninstall and version.

Managed Macs

An Organization section appears when a managed rule feed or a managed audit export is configured. The feed line is “Organization rules: last updated” plus the date and time and, when a count is known, “, 412 rules” with the real count. With no date yet, a refresh in progress reads “Organization rules: updating…”, and otherwise “Organization rules: not updated yet”. The audit line is “Audit export:” plus the destination path and, once an export has run, “, last exported” and the time. With no destination it reads “Audit export: not configured”. Any error sits under its line. The date and time use the Mac’s abbreviated date and short time. The management itself is described in Managed rule feed and Audit log export.