Profiles settings

A profile is a named set of rules you can switch on as a whole, for example one for home and one for the office. The Profiles page creates and removes profiles, activates one, and decides what happens when the Mac joins a network. See Profiles.

The page shows “Managed by your organization” at the top while rule editing is not allowed. That is an organization forbidding it, or the settings lock while Protect rule editing is on. While Protect these settings is on and this session is locked, everything on the page is disabled except Filter networks. The switching controls can still look enabled under a rule lock alone; changing them is then refused with “Managed by your organization”. See Security.

Active profile

Active profile: a picker with “None” and your profiles. It is disabled while rule editing is not allowed. The footer reads: “Rules that belong to a profile apply only while it is active. Rules without a profile always apply.” Rules live in a profile from the rule editor; see Creating and editing rules.

Saved Profiles

The section is titled “Saved Profiles”. Before you add one, the section says “No profiles yet.” Each profile row has a name you can edit in place, its rule count (“1 rule”, or a formatted count plus “ rules”, so none is “0 rules”), and a Remove button. The name is saved when you submit it. A refused name is put back. An empty name, and a second profile with the same name ignoring case, are refused: “Enter a name.” or “A profile named “name” already exists.”

Removing asks “Remove “name”?” with a Remove and Delete Its Rules button. With no rules the message is “No rules belong to this profile. Edit › Undo brings it back.” Otherwise: “The N rules that belong to this profile are deleted too. Edit › Undo brings them back.”

New profile is a field with the prompt “Name, for example Home”, and an Add button. Add uses the same name checks.

Example data.

Networks

The section is titled “Networks”. The footer reads: “Joining a known router selects its profile; no location access is needed.” Outbound knows a Wi-Fi or Ethernet network by its router, never by the Wi-Fi name.

Switch profiles automatically when the network changes: on by default. Off, joining a network changes nothing: no switch and no question, though the list keeps its assignments.

When joining a new network: what a network that is not on the list yet leads to. The options are:

• Ask (the default). The question is the row “New network: NAME” under “Needs Your Attention” on Overview, and the same row in the status pill’s popover. See Overview and The main window. The detail reads: “Choose the profile to use here. Outbound knows a network by its router, never by the Wi-Fi name or your location.” Later dismisses it. Use Profile lists each profile, then “No Profile”, then “Create Profile…”. The checkbox “Don’t ask again on this network” starts checked. There is no question when you have no profiles, or when rule editing is not allowed.
• Keep current profile: whatever is active stays active.
• Use NAME: one option per profile, switching to it.
• Use no profile: switch to no profile at all.

The first time the Mac joins a network, that default action runs, and the network is recorded at once as Don’t switch. A later join changes nothing until you assign the row, or answer the question and remember the answer.

If you delete a profile, every network that used it is set to Don’t switch: those networks switch nothing and ask nothing until you give them a new answer. If When joining a new network was Use that profile, the picker becomes Keep current profile.

Known networks

Every network the Mac has joined is listed. Each row shows an icon for the kind of connection (Wi-Fi, wired Ethernet, cellular, VPN), a name you can edit in place, and either “Connected now” or “Last seen” plus a short age: “just now” under five seconds, then “N s ago”, “N min ago”, “N h ago” or “N d ago”. An empty network name is refused with “Enter a name.”

A VPN counts as its own network, identified by its configuration and the server it connects to. Two servers on one VPN configuration are two networks, so each can switch to a different profile. A VPN row is named after the configuration in System Settings, such as “Work VPN”, or “VPN to” plus the server when the configuration has no name. The tunnels macOS 26 sets up for its own services aren’t VPNs, so they never switch your profile. After updating to 1.3.0, Outbound may ask once about your usual Wi-Fi or Ethernet networks.

On the right, a picker assigns what joining it does:

• One option per profile: switching to that profile.
• No Profile: switching to no profile.
• Don’t switch: joining changes nothing, whatever else the row used to say.

Remove forgets a network. The next join is treated like a network Outbound has not seen. Edit › Undo brings the row back with its profile.

A “Filter networks” field is decided when the page appears, and again when the list goes from empty to non-empty. It shows when there are more than eight networks then, and it stays while you are typing in it. Every word must appear in the network’s name, its interface (“Wi-Fi”, “WiFi”, “wireless”, “Ethernet”, “wired”, “cellular”, “mobile”, “VPN”, “tunnel”) or what joining it does (the profile’s name, “No Profile”, “Don’t switch”). “don’t”, “don’t” and “dont” all find the networks that never switch. A query that matches nothing says “No network matches “query”.” The list grows without a cap, every café and hotel the Mac joins is recorded, so the filter is how you find one.