LinkUnbound

A free, open source browser picker for Windows and macOS. Choose which browser opens every link.

Open source. Local-first. Privacy-first. Zero telemetry.

Download LinkUnbound

_{Prefer a direct download? GitHub Releases has standalone installers — Windows (.exe) · macOS (.dmg)}

LinkUnbound is a free, open source browser picker, browser chooser and default browser manager for Windows and macOS. Every link you click — in Teams, Outlook, Slack, Discord, a PDF, an email client, wherever — gets intercepted. If there's a domain rule, the assigned browser opens instantly. If not, a small browser selection popup appears next to your cursor so you can pick the right browser for that link.

Think of it as a lightweight link router / URL router and browser switcher that sits between your operating system and your browsers. Perfect for separating work and personal browsing, routing client domains to specific browser profiles, or handling multiple browsers without changing the system default every time.

This isn't a company product or a startup. I'm a solo developer who got tired of the OS deciding which browser opens a link, built this for myself, and decided to share it with the community. No ads, no telemetry, no analytics, no accounts, no subscriptions, no cloud, no data collection. Just a small native tool that lives on your machine and nowhere else.

What It Does

Registers as default browser — intercepts every link click system-wide on Windows and macOS
Shows a floating picker near your cursor, in two looks: a classic list or a mosaic of tiles. Pick with the mouse or the keys 1–9; hold Shift for a private window; Ctrl+C copies the address; Esc puts it away
Remembers the choice at the reach you pick — this URL, this subdomain, the whole site, or everything a given app sends
Rules from Settings too — a rule for a site you have not visited yet, or for an app, without waiting for the picker
Unwraps Microsoft SafeLinks and the Edge-only scheme Teams and Outlook wrap links in, so rules see the real destination
Tells you when a rule decided — a small notice with an Undo, six seconds, no focus taken
Opens local documents when you choose it for them — .html, .pdf and the rest on Windows, .html and .xhtml on macOS
Runs silently in the system tray (or menu bar on macOS) — starts at sign-in, stays out of the way
Detects installed browsers and their Chromium profiles — or add custom ones manually
Opens in a private window using the switch each browser family expects
Updates itself — looks at the release feed in the background, says so in the picker and in Settings, and one press installs it; a Microsoft Store copy updates through the Store
Tells you when links are not arriving — Settings explains why and offers the repair
Two languages, three themes — English and Spanish with automatic detection; light, dark or the system's

What It Is / What It Isn't

LinkUnbound is:

A local-first browser picker and default browser manager for Windows and macOS
A lightweight browser switcher and browser selector that works offline
An open source tool you can trust — GPL v3, inspect every line, fork it, contribute

LinkUnbound is not:

A browser, toolbar, or extension
A telemetry or analytics tool
A "platform" with accounts, subscriptions, or ads
A corporate product — it's a personal project shared with the community

Privacy and Security

Everything stays local. LinkUnbound is built on a single, non-negotiable principle: your data never leaves your computer.

Local-only storage — browser list, domain rules, and logs stay on your machine
URL redaction — URLs are automatically redacted in logs at write time; the log file never contains actual URLs
No tracking — no telemetry, no analytics, no hidden collection
No accounts — no sign-up, no login, no profiles
One network request — a read-only check of the release feed the project publishes on GitHub for updates (no user data sent, works offline)

By design, LinkUnbound will never have: accounts, subscriptions, ads, cloud sync, or data collection of any kind.

For responsible disclosure and security contact info, see SECURITY.md. Full privacy details in PRIVACY.md.

Getting Started

Requirements

Windows 10 or 11, or macOS 13 (Ventura) or newer
At least two browsers installed

Installation

Windows — Microsoft Store (recommended): Get it from Microsoft Store — one click, auto-updates, no security warnings.

Windows — standalone installer: download from GitHub Releases.

macOS — install via Homebrew (signed and notarized):

brew tap rgdevment/tap
brew install --cask linkunbound          # stable
brew install --cask linkunbound-beta     # pre-release

Or download the .dmg directly from GitHub Releases.

Windows standalone: security warnings

The installer is signed, but a certificate that few people have run yet earns little reputation with SmartScreen: Windows and your browser may still show a warning on a new release — this is normal and expected.

Browser: Chrome/Edge may block the download — click Keep or Keep anyway.
SmartScreen: Click More info → Run anyway (only happens once).
Why? Code signing certificates cost $200–800/year. The code is 100% open source — you can inspect every line.

Setup

Windows:

Run the installer; it registers LinkUnbound as a browser, starts it, and offers to remove a 1.x install if it finds one
In the settings window, under Links, click Open Settings beside Choose LinkUnbound in Windows — Windows Settings opens on LinkUnbound; make it the default
Done — every link now goes through LinkUnbound. The same page lets you pick it for .html, .pdf and other documents

macOS:

Launch LinkUnbound from Applications (or Spotlight); the settings window opens
In Links, click Set under Set as the default browser
macOS asks you to confirm the change → Use "LinkUnbound"
Done — every link now goes through LinkUnbound. Local .html and .xhtml files go through it too; .svg only if you choose it for them

How It Works

Link click with a rule: the browser opens at once, and a small notice in the corner says which rule decided, with an Undo for six seconds. The notice never takes the keyboard.

Link click without a rule: a picker appears near your cursor, showing where the link comes from and the app it was clicked in. Pick a browser with the mouse or 1–9. Hold Shift (or pin it with the Private pill) to open a private window. To remember the choice, pick a reach first — this URL, this subdomain, the whole site or from this app — with the arrows or the pills, then pick the browser. Ctrl+C copies the address; Esc puts the picker away. Links clicked while it is open wait their turn.

Two looks. Classic is a list; Mosaic is a sheet of tiles. Choose under Application in Settings.

Settings (tray): double-click the tray icon or right-click → Settings. Six pages:

Links — whether the system sends links here, what is wrong when it does not and the button that fixes it; on Windows, the associations held
Rules — every rule, in the order that decides; change where each opens, add one, remove one
Browsers — what was detected, with profiles; hide, duplicate, or add a custom one with its arguments
Application — theme, language, picker look, start at sign-in, the global shortcut, background update checks
Maintenance — export a diagnostic report, rescan browsers, reset the configuration, remove LinkUnbound from the system's list
About — version, licence, the update button, the candidate-versions switch, support links

Updates. Every six hours the resident asks the release feed, without a window. A newer version shows up as a strip atop the picker and in About; Update downloads the signed installer and runs it, and the resident comes back on its own. A copy from the Microsoft Store updates through the Store; a Homebrew copy updates itself the same way as a downloaded one (the cask says auto_updates), and brew upgrade works as well. Turn the background check off under Application if you prefer to ask by hand.

Domain Rules

A rule covers one of four reaches: an exact address, a host (mail.google.com), a whole site (google.com, which covers mail.google.com, drive.google.com and the rest), or everything a given application sends. The narrowest reach that matches wins, and a rule scoped to an app wins over any domain rule — naming the origin is a deliberate statement, and a generic domain rule should not override it silently. Between two rules of the same reach, the one higher in the Rules page answers.

Rules are written from the picker — pick the reach, then the browser — or from the Rules page, where the same rule is typed in. A rule can also ask for a private window, if the browser has one.

Architecture

Two binaries, one package:

linkunbound-shell → the resident: tray or menu bar, the picker, the notice; Windows and macOS run it for every link, and a second copy hands its link to the one already running and exits
linkunbound-settings → the settings window, opened on demand, and the errands the resident sends it on with no window (--look asks the feed, --update installs)

Windows. A named pipe of the user's own (linkunbound-<user>.sock) links second instances to the resident, and holding its name is what keeps a second resident from starting. The installer writes the app's own ProgId, RegisteredApplications and StartMenuInternet keys; the settings window re-points them when the install moves and never recreates what the person took away; Windows itself owns the final choice through UserChoice, which no application may write.

macOS. The bundle's CFBundleExecutable is the resident, so Launch Services starts it — or talks to the running copy — for every link. Nothing arrives on the command line: links, documents, launches and reopens come in as Apple Events (GURL, odoc, oapp, rapp), and the launch event says whether the session started the app as a login item, which is what keeps the settings window closed at sign-in. A Unix socket under ~/Library/Application Support/LinkUnbound/ carries links handed over from a terminal. Default-browser registration goes through NSWorkspace.setDefaultApplication for http, https and the web document types, which the system confirms with its own prompt; the browser that held the links before is remembered and gets them back on unregistering. Login items use SMAppService. A browser is started through open either way — plainly for a bare link, as an instance of its own when a private window or a profile rides along — so Launch Services starts it and it answers for its own permissions rather than for LinkUnbound's. The web document types are declared as an alternate opener: double-clicking an .html keeps opening wherever it did until the person chooses. The app runs as LSUIElement, so it lives in the menu bar instead of the Dock, and the picker floats above every Space, full-screen apps included.

Coming from 1.x. 2.0 is not compatible with the settings of the 1.x line, and does not promise to carry them over: it starts from what it can read and keeps the rest out of the way. On Windows it reads the rules and browsers of a standalone 1.x install where they are, and keeps a copy of the originals as rules.1x.json and browsers.1x.json before writing its own format; a copy installed from the Microsoft Store kept its files inside its package and they are not read. Going back to 1.x means restoring those copies over rules.json and browsers.json. Remove 1.x before installing 2.0 — the installer offers to — or the two fight over the same registration; a Store copy of 1.x has to be uninstalled by hand. On macOS 2.0 ships under the bundle identifier dev.rgdevment.linkunbound; 1.x was com.rgdevment.linkunbound, kept its files under that name, and nothing of it is read. macOS treats them as two applications: quit 1.x, remove it, then open Settings and set LinkUnbound as the default once more, and remove the old entry under System Settings → General → Login Items if one is left behind.

FAQ

Is LinkUnbound free? Yes. Completely free and open source. No premium tiers, no subscriptions, no paywalls — ever. That covers using it anywhere, including across a company. Only redistributing it inside a product of your own needs separate terms.

Does it track my browsing? No. LinkUnbound does not track or transmit anything. URLs are processed in memory and automatically redacted before being written to the navigation log — the log file never contains actual URLs, only privacy-safe placeholders.

Does it need internet? No. LinkUnbound works fully offline. The only network request is a lightweight update check against the release feed the project publishes on GitHub — no user data sent. The app works perfectly without a connection.

Where is my data stored? Everything stays on your machine — %LOCALAPPDATA%\LinkUnbound\ on Windows, ~/Library/Application Support/LinkUnbound/ on macOS. Browser list (browsers.json), rules (rules.json), preferences (preferences.json), what the last update check found (update.json), the navigation log (navigate.log), and extracted icons. Removing the program keeps the rules and browsers unless you ask otherwise.

Does it work with any browser? Yes. LinkUnbound detects all browsers registered with the operating system. You can also add custom browsers manually with any executable path and arguments.

Can I use it with Microsoft SafeLinks? Yes. LinkUnbound unwraps SafeLinks before matching rules, so your rules work on the actual destination — and the picker names it, not the wrapper.

Why do Teams and Outlook still open Edge? Some Microsoft applications hand links straight to Edge down a channel of their own, skipping the default browser, and Windows 11 no longer lets another application stand in the middle of it. When one of those links arrives wrapped in a SafeLink it is unwrapped; the rest is Microsoft's to change.

Does the picker have a keyboard? Yes: 1–9 open a row, Shift holds a private window, Ctrl+P pins it, the arrows or Tab walk the reaches, Ctrl+C copies the address and Esc closes. A global shortcut (default Alt+Shift+L) opens Settings.

Localization

LinkUnbound supports English and Spanish with automatic language detection. You can override the language in Settings.

Language	Tag	Status
English	en	Complete
Spanish	es	Complete

Want to add your language? See the translation guide in CONTRIBUTING.md.

Want to Help?

Contributions are always appreciated:

Write Code — Fix bugs or add features. See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Translate — Add your language.
Report Bugs — Open an issue.
Share Ideas — Tell me what you wish this browser picker could do.

Support the Project

LinkUnbound is free and will always be free. No ads, no premium tiers, no paywalls. If it saves you time and you want to support continued development, you can buy me a coffee:

Every contribution helps keep these tools alive and maintained. But if you can't or don't want to donate — that's completely fine. Star the repo, share it with someone, or just use it. That's enough.

Other Tools

I build free, open source tools focused on privacy and productivity. If you like LinkUnbound, you might also find these useful:

CopyPaste — A local-first clipboard manager and clipboard history tool for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Same philosophy: no ads, no telemetry, no accounts. Everything local.

License

This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. Distributed under the GNU General Public License v3.0. See LICENSE for details.

LinkUnbound is dual licensed. The GPL-3.0 covers everyone using, deploying, auditing or forking it — which is almost everybody, and it costs nothing. Redistributing it, or shipping it inside a product you distribute, needs separate terms: see COMMERCIAL.md.

Contributions require a one-time CLA; you keep the copyright on your work.

I built LinkUnbound because I was tired of my OS not letting me choose which browser opens a link. This is a personal tool, built from a real need, shared because others might need it too. Free to use, free to inspect, free forever.

_{Keywords: browser picker, browser chooser, default browser manager, browser switcher, link router, URL router, link handler, multi-browser workflow, open source browser picker Windows, browser picker macOS, Microsoft Store browser picker, privacy-first link handler, local-first browser routing, no telemetry, work and personal browser separation, Teams links browser, Outlook links browser, Slack links browser, SafeLinks resolver, Browserosaurus alternative, Choosy alternative, BrowserPick alternative.}

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.cargo		.cargo
.github		.github
app		app
crates		crates
resources		resources
scripts		scripts
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
.markdownlint-cli2.jsonc		.markdownlint-cli2.jsonc
CLA.md		CLA.md
COMMERCIAL.md		COMMERCIAL.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
LICENSE		LICENSE
PRIVACY.md		PRIVACY.md
README.md		README.md
SECURITY.md		SECURITY.md
deny.toml		deny.toml
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
release-manifest.json		release-manifest.json
rust-toolchain.toml		rust-toolchain.toml
rustfmt.toml		rustfmt.toml

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