ControlPlane For Mac

Depending on the location, internet connection type, or on the task at hand, one might feel the need to perform various types of adjustments: closing or opening specific apps, toggling certain services, modifying system settings, and so on.

ControlPlane is an macOS utility that resides in your status bar and triggers various actions, depending on your current “context”. The app comes with a limited number of “context” parameters, and actions that can be triggered. However, the rules are always setup by the user.

To use ControlPlane you must start by defining your contexts and the associated actions within the app’s Preferences window. After you establish the activation “rules”, ControlPlane monitors parameters and makes the necessary changes on its own, without further user interaction.

Via the ControlPlane status bar menu, you get to enforce a specific context with a single mouse click, even if the “rules” are not met.

Further customization options include the possibility to use notification, to enable the automatic switching, to use a default context, or to adjust the “confidence” level required for a switch.

ControlPlane offers you the possibility to define as many “contexts” as you need, and can monitor all sorts of parameters: applications, network adapters, the assigned IP address, an attached USB device, your current location, the audio output, and so on.

The next step is to define the actions triggered by the activation of a specific context: ControlPlane can launch apps, mount / unmount volumes, lock the keychain, change sharing settings, adjust system preferences, run Shell Scripts, and much more. Last but not least, you must define the rules that activate a certain context.

ControlPlane is a great tool to have around if you want to avoid performing repetitive system adjustments: if you can use the included tools to define a rule, the application is capable to make the changes without requiring any user interaction. Moreover, the ControlPlane app can take things even further by running user provided Shell Scripts.