Settings and your data
Everything on this page lives under Settings, reached from the icon in the top bar of the app list. The groups below match the group headings in the app.
Behaviour
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Auto-start on boot | Brings the cage back up after a restart. Pair it with Always-on VPN so caged apps never get a window of connectivity before you unlock — see Install and setup. |
| Show app count in notification | Puts the number of caged apps in the ongoing VPN notification. The notification itself is required by Android and cannot be hidden. |
| Default day pass duration | How long a day pass lasts when you grant one from an app's detail screen. |
Appearance
Theme (System, Light, Dark), Dynamic colour (Android 12+ takes its accent from your wallpaper), AMOLED black (a true-black dark theme, which saves power on OLED screens) and Haptics (the small vibration when a cage toggles).
These are per-device preferences and, unlike your rules, they are not synced to another phone — see Account and sync.
Data
Export configuration
Writes your whole setup to a single JSON file: every rule and its transports, your profiles and their members, your schedules, your hidden apps, your pinned widgets and your preferences. You choose where it goes with the system file picker, so it can land in Drive, on the device, or anywhere else your phone can save to.
Nothing personal beyond your own configuration is in the file. It contains package names — which is to say it contains the list of apps you have caged — so treat it the way you would treat that list.
Import configuration
Reads a file written by Export configuration and replaces your current setup with it. It is not a merge: importing is how you move a setup to a new phone or roll back to a known-good one.
Two things are worth knowing:
- It is validated first. A file from a newer version of NetCage, or one that has been edited into an invalid shape, is rejected whole. A partial import never happens.
- It is safe to interrupt. If the app is killed mid-import, NetCage notices on the next launch and finishes the job before anything else reads your rules. You may briefly see a recovery screen while that happens; it resolves on its own.
Clear all cages
Releases every app at once. It clears the rules, not your profiles or schedules — so a schedule that cages something this evening still will. Use it when you want to start the list again from nothing.
View event log
A local, plain-language record of what the engine has done: caged, released, day pass granted, schedule opened or closed, boot restore, app uninstalled, engine errors. It answers "why did that app get internet back?" without guesswork.
The log is on the device only. It is never synced and never uploaded — not to an account, not to crash reporting, not to anything. Clear event log empties it.
Hidden apps, and rules for apps not on this device
Hidden apps lists everything you have hidden from the main list, so you can bring one back. Rules for apps not on this device lists rules pointing at apps you no longer have installed; they are kept rather than deleted because on a synced account that rule may still be doing work on another phone. Both are covered in Caging apps.
Advanced
The root engine lives here, opt-in and clearly labelled experimental. It has never run on rooted hardware — see Limitations for exactly what that means.
Privacy
Two independent switches, Send crash reports and Share anonymous usage data, plus Announcements for push. Each switch controls whether the corresponding SDK is started at all rather than muting one that is already running. What is and is not collected is set out in full on Privacy.
About
The version, links to the website and this documentation, the privacy policy and terms, a way to rate the app, and Other apps by developer.