Health checks and issue banners
The Health card and report, the problems Outbound can raise about itself, and the attention items waiting for you.
Outbound checks itself, and says so when something is wrong. The checks feed the Health card on the Overview, a full report behind it, and the rows of problems that appear in the status pill and on the Overview.
The Health card
Section titled “The Health card”The Overview’s Health card shows one of three states: Everything is working, Needs attention, or Something is wrong. Under the state sits a short summary. When Apple Intelligence is available on macOS 26 or later, the summary is written on the Mac from the report’s own facts (marked “Summarized on this Mac by Apple Intelligence”); otherwise, or when a sentence would name a number the report does not contain, a fixed template says the same facts.
While the Overview is open the check repeats every two minutes; the summary is rewritten only when the findings change.
The report
Section titled “The report”View Report opens the full report: the status and the time it was checked, the summary, six fact tiles, and findings with any available recovery actions. The fact tiles are:
- Network filter: On, Off, Needs approval, Missing, or Not answering.
- Background agent: Running or Not running.
- Protection: Active or Paused.
- Timed out today: the count of timed-out connections still represented in Review items seen during the last 24 hours.
- Rules: how many rules are in the store, and the rules file’s size.
- Memory: the total memory of Outbound’s own processes, or “Not measured”. The filter runs as root and cannot be measured from here.
Buttons at the bottom: Copy Report (the status, findings and summary, as text), Check Again, and Done.
What the check looks for
Section titled “What the check looks for”Each finding carries a severity and, where one exists, a button that goes to the fix:
| Finding | Severity | The fix button |
|---|---|---|
| The network filter is off | Problem | Show Overview |
| macOS is waiting for your approval (allow the filter in System Settings) | Problem | Show Overview |
| The network filter is missing | Problem | Show Overview |
| The network filter is not answering | Problem | Show Overview |
| Outbound’s background agent is not running | Problem | Open Login Items |
| Protection is paused | Warning | Show Overview |
| 3 or more timed-out connections represented in Review over the last 24 hours | Warning | Open Review |
| Warning or Problem | Relaunch Outbound, or Restart Background Agent for the agent | |
| The rules file is |
Note | Open Blocklists |
About the last two: restarting a process frees its memory and protection carries on meanwhile; the rules-file note only says that saving a rule takes a moment longer when many of the rules come from blocklists.
The agent runs the same check every half hour, and once a day per critical finding found by the check itself it posts a notification, “Outbound found a problem”, under the Operational problems switch in Notifications. After the Mac wakes, the next check comes sooner.
Issues the app raises
Section titled “Issues the app raises”Beyond the check, Outbound raises a problem when something fails and clears it when it recovers. Problems are warnings (orange) or critical (red), each with a title, a detail line and, when available, a recovery action:
- The filter is not answering, The filter did not take your rules, Filter settings could not be saved, Some connections were not recorded, The filter is overloaded, An alert could not be shown, Waiting for the filter.
- A snapshot before the update could not be saved, Rules are missing after an update, Rules could not be read or saved, The previous rules could not be backed up.
- A blocklist could not be updated, Your organization’s rules could not be updated.
- Connection history problem, Analytics could not be saved, Assistant history could not be saved, The audit log could not be written, Review could not be saved, Rule usage could not be saved.
- Settings could not be read or saved, A locked rule change could not be undone, A locked setting could not be restored.
- Outbound’s background agent is off, Notifications could not be shown, Location data could not be updated.
- macOS compatibility warnings tell you when the current OS is newer than the build’s declared tested version, or when that declaration is missing or invalid. Check for an Outbound update.
- One-off failures (“Outbound could not finish that”) name the action that failed, can be Dismissed, and expire after 10 minutes.
The fix button depends on the problem: Open Settings, Login Items…, Show Rules, Show Overview, or Try Again. Try Again says whether it worked (“Fixed.” or “Still not fixed:
Attention items
Section titled “Attention items”Separate from problems, three kinds of thing wait for a decision from you. They appear in the status pill’s popover (all of them) and on the Overview (the first few, with the count of the rest):
- An unblock is waiting for your approval. A change that would loosen protection is held until you approve it with Touch ID or your password. The row offers Allow… and Keep Blocked; Outbound keeps blocking until you decide.
- New network:
. Outbound saw a network it has not seen before (it knows a network by its router, never by the Wi-Fi name or your location) and asks which profile to use here. The Use Profile menu lists your profiles and No Profile, plus Create Profile…; Later postpones the question, with Don’t ask again on this network ticked by default. Untick it before choosing Later if you want to be asked again. - The Learn nudge. While Learn is selected and not managed by your organisation, when the oldest pending Review item is at least three days old, a row suggests: keep what you recognise in Review, then switch to Ask. Open Review, Switch to Ask, or Later, which silences it for a week.
- Then the problem rows described above.
The status pill shows a badge while anything is waiting: red for a critical problem, orange otherwise.