What workspace rules read on your Mac

A rule for “links from this Slack workspace” needs more than the name of the app that sent the link. Bouncer needs two things. It needs the list of your workspace names. And at click time, it needs to know which workspace the link came from. This page says what Bouncer reads for each. Everything stays on your Mac. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Reading this data is not a macOS permission, except where Accessibility is named below. For the steps, see Create a rule for a specific app or workspace.

Slack and Notion

To list your workspaces, Bouncer reads the workspace names from the app’s local data files on this Mac. It reads them only after you click Discover workspaces… in the rule editor. Before the first read, Bouncer asks with an alert titled Access App Data:

Bouncer will read Slack’s local data to find your workspace names, so you can create rules for specific workspaces. This data stays on your device.

For Notion, the text says “Notion’s local data” instead. Click OK to allow the read, or Cancel to stop. The Slack tile in onboarding asks the same way when you click Enable workspace detection.

Bouncer keeps the list it found on this Mac. The next time you open the rule editor, the names are there without a new read. To read again, click the refresh button next to the workspace menu. Its tooltip is Refresh workspace list.

Discord

To list your servers, Bouncer reads the server list in the Discord window. That needs Accessibility permission, and Discord must be running. Bouncer reads the window only after you click Discover servers….

If Accessibility is off, Bouncer shows an alert titled Accessibility Permission Required. Click Open Settings to grant it. If Discord is not running, Bouncer shows “Discord isn’t running” with an Open Discord button. Bouncer keeps the server list on this Mac, like the Slack and Notion lists.

At click time

When a link arrives from Slack or Discord, Bouncer reads the title of that app’s front window. The title holds the workspace or server name. For Slack, Bouncer matches that name against the list it found earlier. This read needs Accessibility permission. When the permission is off, the rule cannot match, and the Rules list shows a warning. See Rule warnings.

When a link arrives from Notion, Bouncer reads Notion’s local state on this Mac to see which workspace is current. This does not need Accessibility permission.

Bouncer then compares the name with the workspace in your rule. Capitalization does not matter. The name is used for that one match and is not sent anywhere.