Chowser

Chowser is a macOS app that sits between your links and your browsers. Set it as your default browser, and every link you click opens in the browser and profile you chose for it.

Website · Setup guide · Mac App Store · Direct download

How it works

1. Click a link in any app, such as a Slack message or an email.
2. Chowser checks your rules. A matching rule opens the link straight in its browser.
3. If nothing matches, a small picker appears. Press 1–9, a browser's first letter, or Return.

Install

Requires macOS 14.0 or later.

	Direct download	Mac App Store
Install	GitHub Releases (signed and notarized DMG)	App Store
Updates	Automatic, via Sparkle (optional beta channel)	Through the App Store
Browser profile launching	Full support	Limited: the sandbox strips launch arguments
Profile auto-detection	Yes	No

If you want per-profile routing, use the direct download.

Quick start

1. Open Chowser. The onboarding wizard walks you through choosing a default browser, adding browsers, and optional rules.
2. Add your browsers in Settings → Browsers. Chowser detects installed browsers and their profiles.
3. Add a routing rule in Settings → Rules, for example github.com → your work browser.
4. Click a link anywhere to test it.

Chowser runs from the menu bar by default. To use a regular Dock app instead, change Settings → General → App Mode.

Features

Routing

• Rules by host, path, and source app. Send github.com to one browser, or Slack links to a work profile. Wildcards are supported.
• Per-profile launching for Chromium and Firefox-family browsers (Chrome, Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, Arc, Dia, Firefox, Zen, LibreWolf, Waterfox, and more).
• Fallback routing. Send unmatched links to a chosen browser instead of showing the picker.
• Focus mode. From the menu bar, send all links to one browser for 1 hour or until tomorrow.
• Private mode. Press P in the picker, or set a per-rule private-mode toggle.
• Suggested rules. Chowser suggests a rule after you open the same domain in the same browser 30 times.

Picker

• Icon bar, list, radial, and minimal layouts. Appearance settings control size, tint, transparency, and color scheme.
• Keyboard-first: shortcuts are listed in the table below.
• Link preview shows the page title and image before you choose. It is off by default because it contacts the network (see Privacy).
• Edit the URL in the picker before opening it, for one-off fixes.

Links

• URL rewrites. Strip tracking parameters, force HTTPS, replace hosts, or edit query parameters. A live tester shows what changed.
• Shortlink resolution. Resolve shortened links to their destination before routing. Press H in the picker to resolve one manually.
• Hosted rewrite catalog. Review and add maintained starter rules from Settings → Rewrites. Nothing is installed without your review, and your own rules are never overwritten.
• Native app links. Open supported web links in an installed app, such as Spotify. Apps come from a signed directory, and each app is off until you approve it. Chowser checks the registered handler right before it opens the app.
• Send to phone. Share the current link by AirDrop, QR code, or copy. Handoff is used when available.
• Clipboard URL. Open a link from the clipboard via the menu bar.

Activity

• Link history. Chowser keeps a local log of the links it handles: when, from which app, and where each one went. Links you dismissed (Escape or click-away) are kept too, so a link an agent or script opened with open https://… is never lost. Find it in Settings → Activity, then open it, open it in another browser, copy it, or create a rule.
• Recent links in the menu bar. The last 5 links are listed in the menu. Hold ⌥ to create a rule for a link's host. Reopen Last Link In sends the last link to any configured browser.
• Activity level. Choose Full history, Stats only, or Off in Settings → Privacy.

Management

• Import and export browsers and rules as JSON. Imports merge with your existing setup.
• Hide non-browser apps that register as web handlers, and launch at login.
• Diagnostics in Settings → General → About. Logs record routing decisions but never visited hostnames or local file paths, so they are safe to attach to a bug report.

Picker shortcuts

Key	Action
1–9	Open the browser with that number
Browser initial	Select that browser
↑ ↓ then Return	Select and open
P	Toggle private mode
R	Create a routing rule for this link
E	Edit the URL
H	Resolve a shortlink
I	Send to phone
Cmd+C	Copy the URL
?	Show all shortcuts
Esc	Dismiss

Hold Shift when a link arrives to force the picker, even when a rule matches.

Local API for AI agents

Chowser includes an optional HTTP API on localhost:24245 that lets an AI assistant read and change your browsers, rules, rewrites, and settings. It is off until you start it.

• Start or stop: from the menu bar, or headlessly with chowser://mcp/start and chowser://mcp/stop.
• Reopen a dismissed link: chowser://reopen runs the most recent dismissed link through routing again. It needs Full history.
• Authentication: every request needs the bearer token shown in Settings → General.
• Endpoints: GET /status, GET / POST / DELETE on /browsers, /rules, and /rewrites, POST /browsers/preview (dry-run a launch command), and GET / POST /settings (including activityLevel). Link history is deliberately not exposed over the API.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $CHOWSER_TOKEN" http://localhost:24245/status

The server only listens on your Mac. It is not reachable from the network.

Privacy

• Shortlink resolution and link preview make network requests, so both are off by default. Turn them on in Settings → Behavior.
• Link history stays on your Mac. It is saved as a file in ~/Library/Application Support/Chowser/ (readable only by you), capped at 500 links and 30 days, and not included in Export All. Private-mode opens are never recorded. Chowser never sends usage data anywhere.
• Activity level (Settings → Privacy): Full history (the default for new installs; installs updated from 3.9.13 or earlier start at Stats only until you turn it on), Stats only (keeps only the website name, not the path or query), or Off (records nothing). Lowering the level asks first, then deletes the data the new level doesn't allow. Off also deletes the domain click counts behind picker hints and suggested rules. Clear History is on the Activity page.
• Rewrite catalogs and native-app directories are signed (Ed25519) and verified against a public key pinned in the app. Chowser downloads the catalog files only. The URLs you click are never sent to the catalog host.

Build from source

Requires Xcode (CI builds with Xcode 26.3).

git clone https://github.com/bsreeram08/chowser.git
cd chowser
open Chowser.xcodeproj

Or from the command line:

xcodebuild -project Chowser.xcodeproj \
  -scheme Chowser-osp \
  -configuration Release \
  -derivedDataPath build \
  CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO

open build/Build/Products/Release/Chowser.app

Local builds run unsandboxed, so profile launching works. The in-app updater stays disabled unless you pass SPARKLE_PUBLIC_ED_KEY at build time.

To build the sandboxed App Store variant, use the Chowser-appstore scheme.

Testing

xcodebuild test -project Chowser.xcodeproj -scheme Chowser-osp -destination 'platform=macOS' -only-testing:ChowserTests   # unit
xcodebuild test -project Chowser.xcodeproj -scheme ChowserUITests -destination 'platform=macOS'                           # UI

Project layout

• Chowser/: app source. AppDelegate.swift handles link interception, BrowserManager.swift owns routing, and ContentView.swift is the picker.
• CLAUDE.md: architecture notes. docs/ holds the website and architecture decision records.
• scripts/: release, signing, and distribution helpers.

Releasing (maintainers)

1. Add a ## [x.y.z] - YYYY-MM-DD section to CHANGELOG.md.

2. Prepare the release. This bumps the version and build number, runs the unit tests, and builds and verifies both the direct and App Store products:

   SPARKLE_PUBLIC_ED_KEY=<public-key> scripts/release.sh x.y.z

3. Commit the version and changelog change, then merge it to main.

4. Tag the merged commit and push the tag:

   git tag -s vx.y.z -m "Chowser vx.y.z"
   git push origin vx.y.z

The tag starts .github/workflows/release-macos.yml. CI builds, signs, notarizes, and publishes the DMG to GitHub Releases, along with the signed Sparkle appcast. Use x.y.z-beta.n for beta builds.

Contributing

Open an issue before starting a large change. Run the unit tests and build both Chowser-osp and Chowser-appstore before opening a pull request.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.