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Pulse skips some apps on every Mac. For a skipped app, Pulse records only which app was in front and for how long. It never reads the app’s window title, the text in its window, or its screen. Two lists decide which apps Pulse skips:
  • The protected list. It is built into Pulse. No setting can remove an app from it.
  • The Workspace list. A Workspace admin sets it. It applies to every Mac in the Workspace. It can only add apps to the protected list.
There is no list per person. A person cannot add or remove skipped apps for their own Mac.

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What Pulse records for a skipped app

Pulse does not read a skipped app’s window through Accessibility, and it does not capture a skipped app’s screen. It only notes when the app comes to the front and when its window changes. The Pulse Primer describes everything Pulse collects.

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Apps Pulse always skips

The protected list holds:
  • password managers, such as 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, Dashlane, Enpass, KeePassXC, and Keychain Access;
  • banking and finance apps, such as Quicken, TurboTax, PayPal, and the apps of Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo;
  • health apps, such as Apple Health and MyFitnessPal.

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Skip an app in your Workspace

You need permission to revoke Macs. Anyone who can see the Macs page can read the list.
  1. Open Protection > Macs.
  2. In Skipped apps, type the bundle ID of each app, one per line.
  3. Select Save.
Parable stores each entry in lower case, sorts the list, and removes duplicates. To stop skipping an app, delete its line and select Save. An empty list leaves only the protected list.

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Find an app’s bundle ID

Every Mac app has a bundle ID, such as com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap for Slack. To find it, run one of these commands in Terminal:

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How Pulse matches an entry

An entry is a prefix of a bundle ID. Pulse skips every app whose bundle ID starts with the entry:
  • com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap skips Slack.
  • com.microsoft skips every Microsoft app, such as Outlook, Teams, and Word.
Pulse ignores case when it compares an entry with a bundle ID. Each entry must have at least two parts separated by dots, such as com.example. A part has only letters, digits, and hyphens. The list holds at most 200 entries, and each entry has at most 255 characters. Parable refuses a list that breaks these rules and stores nothing.

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When a change applies

  • A Mac gets the list when it enrolls, before its first capture.
  • An enrolled Mac gets the list when Pulse starts, and then at least every six hours.
  • When a new list skips the app that is in front, Pulse deletes the window title, window text, and screen text that it holds for that app’s current time in front.
If a Mac cannot reach Parable, it keeps the last list it got. A failed check-in never removes a skipped app.