My battery kept dying at coffee shops, so I built Junction

My battery kept dying at coffee shops, so I built Junction

I usually build stuff sitting in coffee shops. I just get way more locked in when I'm out of the house than at home. So this isn't some rare thing - it's basically most of my work time.

Anyway, here's what kicked this off: I was at a coffee shop, on battery, working in Zen like always, and my battery just dropped off a cliff. Way faster than it should. So I switched to Safari for a bit just to see, and yeah, night and day.

Not really shocking honestly - Safari's built for Apple Silicon specifically, Zen runs on Firefox's engine, and Firefox-based browsers are known to be heavier on power on a Mac.

The fix was obvious

So the fix was pretty obvious: Safari on battery, Zen when plugged in. Doesn't even matter if I'm doing light stuff or grinding on something heavy unplugged. Safari just costs less battery either way.

Only problem: macOS doesn't let you do that. Whatever your default browser is, that's what opens when you click a link anywhere - Slack, Telegram, Mail, doesn't matter.

So I built Junction

I just wanted those links to go to Safari when I'm unplugged, without having to think about it or manually change my default browser every time I sit down at a coffee shop. So I built Junction to do that for me.

What it does

Sits in your menu bar, grabs every link you click system-wide, and decides which browser actually opens it based on rules you set:

• Battery-aware rules. On battery → Safari, plugged in → Zen (or whatever). Watches your power state live so it flips the second you plug/unplug, no restart needed.
• Regular rules too. Match by host or regex - "anything on github.com goes to Chrome," stuff like that.
• A picker when nothing matches. Small popup under the menu bar icon, pick with your keyboard or a click. Fast, not some dialog you have to fight with.
• Rules run in order, so you can stack exceptions above a general rule.

Free

Junction's free, no restrictions. There's an optional one-time supporter license if you want to throw a few bucks at it.

Download

You can grab the latest version here.