App links

Many apps declare their own type of link, such as slack:// or discord://. For these apps (Slack, Discord, Linear, Notion, and others), the app’s row in Apps reads Add a link: you can give each workspace its own place in the app. For example, a different Slack channel for each project.

Add a link

Click the app’s row, paste or type the link, and click Save. Below the field, the dialog lists the kinds of links the app opens, such as slack://.

Layout only accepts a link with a scheme the app itself declares, and sends it to that app only, never to whichever app macOS would pick. Web and file links (http, https, and file) are left to browser tabs and folders. If you enter a link the app can’t open, the dialog shows an error with examples of links it accepts, and Save stays unavailable.

Slack channels

To add a Slack channel, paste its Copy link address, such as https://acme.slack.com/archives/C…. Layout converts it right away into a slack://channel?team=T…&id=C… link, because Slack needs the ID of the Slack workspace to open a channel. Links to a message or a thread open their channel.

Layout finds that ID among the Slack workspaces signed in on this Mac, in a state file Slack keeps on your disk. It reads that file only at the moment you paste, never when you switch workspaces. If no signed-in Slack workspace matches, the dialog says so.

You can also paste:

• the channel’s address in Slack’s web app, https://app.slack.com/client/T…/C…, which already carries the IDs, or
• a slack://channel?team=…&id=… link directly.

Note

The Slack app from the App Store keeps that state file in its sandbox, where Layout can’t read it. With that version, paste a slack:// link or an app.slack.com/client/… address instead of a Copy link address.

When links open

• Launching the workspace opens each app’s link once, after placing the windows.
• Switching back to a workspace opens its link again only if the app was in view in another workspace in the meantime: on screen when you switched there, or brought forward there. If you go to a workspace without Slack, or where Slack stays covered, and come back, Slack stays on the channel where you were, even one you navigated to yourself.
• A covered app’s link waits until you bring the app forward through Layout, such as from the Layout bar or with ⌘Tab when the replacement is on. Bringing it forward another way, from the Dock or with the app’s own notification or shortcut, drops the link: the app keeps what you see.
• While you drag a file or anything else, no link opens, even when the drag brings the app forward: the drop lands in what it shows.
• Layout doesn’t save this memory: it starts over when you pause Layout, and when the app quits.
• Switching never launches an app. If you switch quickly several times, only the last switch opens its links.
• Launch All Workspaces and launching a section don’t open every workspace’s link, since one app window can only show the last one. When Layout returns to the workspace you started from, it opens the links that workspace needs.

Apps that come forward

Layout sends links without activating the app, but some apps, Slack included, still bring themselves forward when they receive one. For two seconds after sending the link, Layout gives the focus back to the most recent window of your workspace, unless that window belongs to the app itself.

Links are saved with the workspace, and Duplicate copies them.