About Little Snitch
Little Snitch is a network monitor and application firewall for macOS that lets users see and control the internet connections made by programs on their Mac. When an app attempts to connect, it can show an alert with the option to allow or deny the connection. Users can also create rules that handle later attempts automatically, including rules that limit an app to particular servers, domains, ports, or network protocols. This makes the product useful for people who want to inspect outgoing network activity and decide which connections are permitted. The network monitor presents current activity and details about connections, including data volumes, server locations, ports, and protocols. Users can arrange connections in hierarchies, such as by app, domain, or country, to understand which programs are communicating with which destinations. An interactive traffic chart provides a view of current and past activity, with communication patterns available for review over periods of up to twelve months. Search tools can locate connections by application, host name, country, city, and other criteria, while quick filters help narrow lists of rules. Rules can be organized into groups and profiles. Groups may be kept on the Mac or subscribed to from a remote server, and profiles can be switched manually or automatically. The menu bar control center gives a compact view of network activity and recently denied connections, and provides controls for operation modes and the active profile. Silent Mode allows new connections automatically at first so that decisions can be reviewed later without interrupting the user each time an app connects. The product also includes topic-organized blocklists that can be activated with a few clicks and receive daily updates, including lists based on IP addresses. Its built-in DNS encryption supports DNS over HTTPS, DNS over TLS, and DNS over QUIC through trusted DNS services. Users can enable acoustic notifications for selected connections, with some sounds varying according to the amount of data transferred. Together, these controls combine immediate connection decisions with ongoing monitoring and rule management.
