Documentation

Everything you need to set up and use Default Tamer.

Setup

Download & install

Download the DMG from the Download page, open it, and drag Default Tamer to your Applications folder.

Launch the app

Open Default Tamer from Applications or Spotlight (⌘ Space). It runs in your menu bar.

Set as default browser

Click the menu bar icon → Open System Settings. In System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Default web browser, select Default Tamer.

Choose a fallback browser

Click the menu bar icon and pick the browser for links that don't match any rule — usually Safari or Chrome.

That's it — links now route automatically. Hold ⌥ Option while clicking any link to manually pick a browser on the fly.

Rules

Rules are evaluated top-to-bottom. The first match wins; unmatched links go to your fallback browser. Create and reorder rules from Manage Rules in the menu bar.

Rule Type	What it matches	Example
Source App	Links opened from a specific app	Slack → Chrome
Domain — Exact	Exact domain match	github.com → Firefox
Domain — Suffix	Domain + all subdomains	*.atlassian.net → Chrome
Domain — Contains	Any domain containing a string	jira → Chrome
URL — Contains	Full URL containing a string	/admin → Safari
URL — Regex	Full URL matching a regex pattern	/pull/\d+ → Chrome

Ordering tip: Put specific rules above general ones. A mail.google.com rule must come before *.google.com or it will never be reached.

Troubleshooting

Common issues and how to fix them.

Links aren't routing through Default Tamer

Check that Default Tamer is still set as your default browser: System Settings → Desktop & Dock → Default web browser. macOS occasionally resets this after system updates.

Link opened in the wrong browser

Open Recent Routes from the menu bar to see exactly which rule matched (or if the fallback was used). Rule ordering is the most common culprit — a broader rule above a narrower one will match first.

Source app shows as "Unknown"

Some apps don't pass source information to macOS (common with Terminal, scripts, and some Electron apps). Use domain or URL rules instead — they work regardless of source detection.

Menu bar icon is missing

macOS hides icons when the menu bar is full. Hold ⌘ and drag other icons to make space. If the app isn't running, relaunch from Applications.

Resetting to factory defaults

Open Settings from the menu bar icon → scroll to Danger Zone → click Reset. Confirm in the dialog and the app will return to its first-run state — all rules and preferences will be removed.

Advanced: You can also reset from Terminal if the app won't launch:

rm -rf ~/Library/Application\ Support/Default\ Tamer/
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/com.defaulttamer.app.plist

FAQ

Why does it need to be set as the default browser? +

macOS only allows the default browser to intercept links from other apps. Setting Default Tamer as default lets it receive every link before passing it to the right browser.

Which browsers are supported? +

Any browser installed on your Mac — Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Arc, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, and more. Default Tamer auto-detects all installed browsers.

Does it collect any data? +

No. All processing is local. There are zero network calls, zero telemetry, and zero data collection. Activity logging is opt-in, and URLs are sanitized before storage. You can verify this — it's fully open source.

How do I uninstall it? +

Change your default browser back in System Settings → Desktop & Dock, then quit and delete the app. No background services, no kernel extensions — it's a clean sandboxed app.

Have a question or found a bug?

Report an Issue GitHub Discussions