Trouble shooting

This can happen after updating AppLanes. Restart your Mac — macOS finishes replacing the extension on reboot — then open AppLanes again.

• Toggle AppLanes off and on from the menu bar.
• If that doesn’t help, restart your Mac. macOS occasionally holds on to an old copy of the extension after an update; a reboot clears it.

New connections always follow your rules instantly. Connections that were already open before you changed the rule can’t be moved — this is a limitation of how internet connections work and applies to every split-tunneling product. AppLanes nudges running apps to reconnect within a few seconds of a rule change, but some apps hold connections open for a long time (video calls, downloads, streaming). To apply a rule to a running app immediately, quit and reopen that app.

Same cause as above: browsers reuse open connections aggressively. Wait a few seconds and reload the page, or restart the browser. Also note that some “what is my IP” pages report the location of your DNS resolver rather than your connection — with a VPN connected, DNS is answered by the VPN by design, so those pages can show the VPN’s region even though your traffic is going direct.

Check that your Mac has a working physical connection (Wi-Fi or Ethernet) alongside the VPN. Direct traffic bypasses the VPN and uses that physical connection — if it’s down, Direct apps have no path to the internet.

Blocking applies to new connections; a transfer that was already in progress may complete. Restart the blocked app to cut it off entirely.

Yes. Rules apply to an app’s helper processes automatically (for example, Chrome’s networking helper follows your Chrome rule). You don’t need separate rules for them.

AppLanes detects VPNs that route traffic through a tunnel interface (this covers virtually all macOS VPN apps — WireGuard, IKEv2/IPsec, OpenVPN). If yours isn’t detected, disconnect and reconnect the VPN. If it’s still not detected, contact support and tell us which VPN app and protocol you use.

That’s leak protection working as intended: when your VPN disconnects, apps routed through the VPN are blocked so their traffic never leaks onto the open network. If you’d rather those apps fall back to your regular connection when the VPN is down, change VPN fallback in AppLanes settings from Block traffic to Allow direct.

AppLanes deliberately never blocks VPN apps or the ports VPNs use to connect (DNS, IKE/IPsec) — a VPN must always be able to reach its servers. If your VPN still can’t connect, toggle AppLanes off, connect the VPN, then toggle AppLanes back on, and report it to us — that’s a bug we want to hear about.

Enable LAN bypass in AppLanes settings. Local-network destinations then always connect directly, regardless of how the app is routed, so a VPN route or leak protection can’t cut off printers and file shares.

DNS is deliberately left on your system’s normal path — with a VPN up, that’s the VPN’s resolver, which is the only resolver your Mac can reach. If names stop resolving entirely, reconnect your VPN or toggle AppLanes off and on, and contact support if it persists.

Multiple network filters can run side by side, but each adds its own layer of decisions — if traffic behaves unexpectedly, temporarily disable the other tool to see which one is responsible before reporting a bug.

Keep only one VPN connected at a time. With multiple tunnels up, “route through VPN” becomes ambiguous and behavior depends on which VPN owns the default route.

That’s by design — AppLanes lives in the menu bar (look for its icon near the clock). Click the icon to open the popover, and open the main window from there when you need the full interface.

Launch AppLanes again from the Applications folder. If you want it always available, add it to System Settings → General → Login Items so it starts at login.

1. Quit AppLanes from the menu bar.
2. Delete AppLanes from your Applications folder — macOS automatically removes the system extension with it.
3. If an entry lingers under System Settings → General → Login Items & Extensions → Network Extensions, restart your Mac; macOS cleans it up on reboot.