Filters

Allow and deny lists that decide which apps and sites are recorded, applied before events reach the store.

Filters decide which apps and sites are recorded. They run before events reach the store, so excluded data is never written.

Capture-time and query-time filtering

There are two ways to narrow by app, and they do different things:

	Capture-time filters (this page)	Query-time filters (`--app` etc.)
Where it acts	Before the store — matching events are discarded	Only when reading data back
Purpose	Keep sensitive apps out of the store	Narrow results
Configured via	`zanei filter` commands / `[filter]` in `config.toml`	Per-command flags like `--app`, `--types`
From MCP	Cannot be changed (read-only)	Usable as `query_events` arguments

Managing the lists

zanei filter show                                      # current lists and active mode
zanei filter exclude-app add com.1password.1password   # deny list: add
zanei filter exclude-app remove com.1password.1password
zanei filter only-app add com.apple.Safari             # allow-only list: add
zanei filter exclude-site add example.com              # exclude by URL host (browser.* events)
zanei filter only-site add github.com

Subcommand	`config.toml` key	Meaning
`exclude-app`	`exclude_apps`	Deny list — everything else is captured
`only-app`	`include_only_apps`	Allow list — when non-empty, only listed apps are captured
`exclude-site`	`exclude_websites`	Deny list for `browser.*` URL hosts
`only-site`	`include_only_websites`	Allow list for `browser.*` URL hosts

Editing config.toml directly is equivalent; the CLI additionally validates keys and deduplicates. The daemon watches the config file at roughly 2-second intervals, so changes apply within a few seconds without a restart.

Matching

Apps — match by bundle_id (recommended; display names can change). An app that has a bundle_id is matched only by it; a display-name entry applies only to events whose app has no bundle_id. Matching is case-insensitive.
Sites — dot-boundary suffix match on the URL host: example.com also covers api.example.com, but not evil-example.com. There is no Public Suffix List handling — an entry like com matches every .com host, so prefer full domain names. Site rules apply to the URL host of browser.* events, so you can keep recording the browser while dropping specific sites.
Precedence — if include_only_* is non-empty, an event is captured only if it is in that list and not in exclude_*. If empty, everything not excluded is captured.
App-level exclusion is total — it drops all event types from that app (ui.*, input.*, window.*, …).

Always-on exclusions

Independent of your lists:

Private browsing — Chrome Incognito is always excluded from URL capture (detected deterministically).
Built-in exclusions — password managers and credential stores (1Password, Keychain Access, …) are excluded by a hard-coded layer that cannot be lifted, not even with include_only_apps. It is separate from the default entries you see in exclude_apps in config.toml; editing those does not affect it. filter show lists the built-in entries separately from your own.

Filters and MCP

Capture-time filters cannot be modified over MCP; the MCP server is read-only. Filter management happens only through the CLI or config.toml. See MCP server.