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Air Traffic Control: Route Links to the Right Space Automatically
Air Traffic Control: Route Links to the Right Space Automatically
Keep your Spaces organized with rules to automatically route URLs to the right place.
Adena avatar
Written by Adena
Updated over a week ago

What's Air Traffic Control?

Air Traffic Control helps you Route links to the right place when they're opened from outside Arc.

For example, you can choose that all Google Sheet links opened from Desktop Apps like Slack or Outlook route directly to your Work Space.

You can also set up a default Space for links so tabs are automatically opened in the Space of your choice, rather than in Little Arc.

How to Set Up a Route

To set up a new Route,

  • Hit CMD T and type "Open Link Preferences", or

  • Go to Arc > Settings > Links

Then select the "Air Traffic Control" button, as seen below:

Once you're in the Air Traffic Control panel, you can starting Routing!

To create a New Route,

  • Hit the New Route button at the top right of the Air Traffic Control panel

  • Select URL contains or is equal to a particular URL.

    • Contains will route links that contains your text entry, even it's not an exact match. Great options for "Contains" are website domains. For example, if you create a Route for URL's that contain "spotify.com", this Spotify link* will Route automatically to your Music Space. (*This is a favorite album from our teammate, Brian!)

    • Is equal to will only route links that exactly match your text entry. Make sure to include http://www, if that's how your link loads! This is a great option for very specific URLs. For example, you may use Google Docs across all Spaces, but if https://docs.google.com/document/d/weekly-business-report should always route to your Work Space, is equal to is the right choice.

Setting Up a Default Route for All Links

By default, all links opened from another desktop app open in Little Arc. You can learn more about Little Arc here.

If you'd like to open links into a Space by default, use the dropdown for "Default" at the bottom of the Air Traffic Control panel. Any link opened from another desktop app that doesn't have a predefined Route will open in this Space. Good options for this could be your most general Space, or the Space you visit most often.

You can also select "Most Recent Space" if you'd like tabs to be Routed automatically to whichever Space you used Last.

If you're always switching Spaces, and don't have a great Default, select "Little Arc" here so you can triage easily.

How to Delete a Route

To Delete a Route, hit the ⛔ button next to your Route. See image below.

If you have a Route set up on a Space that's been deleted, the Route will be deleted as well.

Recommended Routes

Here are some ideas from the team, but the best Routes are the ones that fit your workflow!

Route to a Work Space

  • URL contains github.com

  • URL contains linear.app

  • URL contains notion.com

  • URL contains figma.com

  • URL contains hire.lever.co

  • URL contains salesforce.com

  • Other internal tooling links

Route to a Personal Space

  • URL contains twitter.com

  • URL contains youtube.com

  • URL contains instagram.com

  • URL contains amazon.com

  • URL contains netflix.com

  • Banking or other personal URLs

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