Air Traffic Control

Create save routes to file links into spaces, and open routes to control which browser opens them - like mail rules for your bookmarks.

How It Works

Air Traffic Control has two types of routes:

• Save Routes - When you save a page (⌘⌃S), save routes are checked. The first matching route files the link into the specified space. Save routes can also filter by which browser you’re saving from.
• Open Routes - When you click a link in the sidebar, open routes are checked. The first matching route opens it in the specified browser instead of your default.

Rules are evaluated top-to-bottom. The first matching rule wins. If no rules match, the link uses your current space and default browser.

An explicit per-link Preferred Browser overrides ATC. ATC rules take priority over the source browser recorded when a link was saved and the default browser. One-time browser choices (Opt-click, right-click → Open With) take priority over ATC. See Browser Selection Priority for the full order.

Setup

1. Open Preferences → Air Traffic Control
2. Toggle Enable Air Traffic Control
3. Click Add Route to create your first rule

Creating a Rule

When you click Add Route, you first choose the route type:

Save Route

Routes saved links to a specific space, and optionally a specific folder inside that space.

Open Route

Opens matching links in a specific browser, or in a specific browser profile.

A live preview at the bottom of the editor shows exactly what the rule will do as you configure it.

An empty URL pattern means All URLs for either match type. Any selected source browser or space still limits the rule. Put an all-URLs rule below more specific rules when you want it to act as a fallback.

Open routes always show their source space, All Spaces, or Missing space. An all-URLs Open route with All Spaces selected shows a warning and requires confirmation before saving. A rule pointing to a missing space must be reassigned before it can be saved; importing a rule whose source space cannot be found preserves that restriction and disables the rule.

Smart Suggestions

Air Traffic Control watches what you open from the sidebar and suggests new rules based on patterns it sees, so you don’t have to invent every rule from scratch.

• From the Command Panel - When the URL you’re about to open matches a strong pattern (e.g. you’ve opened the same domain in the same browser repeatedly), the Command Panel offers a one-click row to create the rule and open the link in the suggested browser at the same time.
• From Preferences - Open Preferences - Air Traffic Control to see suggestions based on your recent open history. Click a suggestion to convert it into a regular rule that you can then edit or reorder like any other.

Suggestions stay out of the way until they’re confident. You can ignore them and your existing rules keep working unchanged.

Managing Rules

• Reorder - Drag rules to change priority (first match wins)
• Enable/Disable - Toggle individual rules without deleting them
• Edit - Click a rule to modify its settings
• Delete - Remove rules you no longer need

Per-space default browser

In 1.3.0 and later, the quickest way to give a space a default destination is to link a browser or profile using the icon beside its name. You can also manage it in Preferences → Spaces → My spaces.

The connection supplies a default Open route. It also scopes Live Tabs to that browser/profile, even though Live Tabs does not have to be visible for routing to work. A connection with the earlier automatic-opening setting explicitly turned off retains that choice until you enable it for that space.

Turning off Air Traffic Control or disabling the linked-space Open route stops that route from choosing a destination. The connection and its tab filter remain.

If you only want to change where links open, keep using a per-space Open route in Preferences → Air Traffic Control. That route does not need to change which Live Tabs appear.

For links without an explicit Preferred Browser, Open routes are checked in their displayed order. A matching route above the linked-space default takes priority. A one-time Open With choice overrides both. See Browser Selection for the full order.

Per-link Preferred Browser

Right-click a saved web link and choose Preferred Browser to set its default browser. Choose None to clear the preference and use automatic routing again.

Use this when one particular link should open differently from every other URL on the same domain. For example, a single Figma file in your Design space that should always open in Arc, while every other Figma link uses your default.

When to use which:

An explicit per-link Preferred Browser takes precedence over ATC. If both apply to the same URL, the saved link preference wins. See Browser Selection Priority for the full order.

Route suggestions

SupaSidebar can suggest routes based on how you open links. Turn Show Route Suggestions on or off in Preferences → Air Traffic Control. This controls suggestions in Preferences, the Command Panel, and browser pickers; turning suggestions off leaves your existing rules in place.

Examples

Save Routes

Open Routes

Combining Both

Want GitHub links to go to your Dev space and always open in Chrome? Create two rules:

1. Save Route: github.com → Development space
2. Open Route: github.com → Chrome

Each rule does one thing clearly - no ambiguity.

Tips

• Start broad, refine later - Begin with domain-level patterns like github.com, then add specific patterns if needed
• Use “contains” for most rules - It’s more flexible than exact matching
• Order matters - Put more specific rules above general ones
• Source browser filters are powerful - Use them to keep different browsers organized into separate spaces automatically
• Combine with Spaces - ATC is most useful when you have multiple spaces for different contexts