Automations

Routines that run on their own: triggers, approvals and undo.

Creating one

Just describe it. Orbix shows a confirm card with the name, when it runs and what it will do; click Create.

“Every Friday at 5 pm, move installers older than 30 days from Downloads to the Trash”“When a PDF lands in Downloads, tell me what it is”“10 minutes before each meeting, brief me from my memory”“When my disk drops below 20 GB, show me what I can remove”

Triggers

Trigger	Example
Daily or weekly, at a time	“Every weekday at 9 am…”
Every N minutes	“Every 2 hours…”
Once	“Tomorrow at 8…”
Files arrive in a folder	“When a PDF lands in Downloads…” (files arriving together make one run)
Free space drops below a size	“When disk is under 20 GB…” (at most once a day)
An app opens	“When I open Figma…”
Before each meeting	“10 minutes before meetings…”
When Orbix starts	“Every time I log in…”
Joining or leaving a Wi-Fi network	“When I join the Office Wi-Fi…” (Wi-Fi names need Location permission)
Unlocking, locking or waking the Mac	“When I unlock my Mac in the morning…”
A display connected or disconnected	“When I plug in my monitor…”
Headphones connected	“When my AirPods connect, play my focus playlist”
Power connected, or on battery	“When I'm on battery, turn the brightness down…”

Each moment fires at most once every two minutes, so a flaky Wi-Fi doesn't run a routine ten times.

If your Mac was asleep at the time, a missed run happens when it wakes — unless it's more than a day late.

Approvals

By default an automation asks first: when it wants to change something, you get a notification with Approve and Skip (no answer in 30 minutes means skip). You can let an automation make changes without asking — Terminal commands and Shortcuts still always ask.

Managing and undoing

Open ⚡ in the footer: switch automations on or off, see the last run and what it did, Run now, Undo last run or delete. Each run's result arrives as a notification and is saved to History.

“What automations do I have?”“Pause the Friday cleanup”“Show me what my automations did this week”

Modes

A mode is a set of steps that runs instantly, with no AI in between: open apps, change settings (Dark Mode, volume, Wi-Fi), run a Shortcut (for a Focus or a Home scene), arrange windows, play or pause music. Create one by describing it; you approve it once.

“Set up a work mode that opens Xcode and Slack, turns on Dark Mode and runs my Work Focus shortcut”“work mode”“movie night”

Everything a mode did is one item in What Orbix did, and one Undo puts it all back. Tie a mode to a moment — “when I join the Office Wi-Fi, switch on Work mode” — and it runs by itself.

‹ Safety & undo Proactive help ›