THE BROWSER MANUAL
A little guidance.
A lot to explore.
Make yourself at home in Vela. Start with the essentials, then make the browser work your way.
Your first few minutes.
- Download Vela for Mac, open the DMG, and drag Vela into Applications.
- Launch Vela and open a new tab. Enter a website address or a search in the address bar.
- Open Settings to choose your search engine, theme, and startup behavior.
The Mac app supports macOS 14 Sonoma or later, on Apple Silicon and Intel.
Room for every idea.
Use a new tab for a fresh page. Pin sites you visit often, bookmark a page for later, and use your history to pick up a previous trail.
Address suggestions help you return to pages you know. Use the arrow keys to choose a suggestion, or press Enter to open what you typed. Find-in-page searches inside the current website.
Your work life. Your other life.
MultiLogin profiles keep cookies, sessions, and website storage apart. Create a non-default profile for work, a project, or another account. Configure its proxy and fingerprint settings when needed.
To collaborate, sign in to your Vela account in MultiLogin, select a profile, and choose Publish & Share. Manage invitations and access on the account page. Recipients must accept invitations before access begins.
An assistant beside your tabs.
Open Settings → AI and choose your provider. Configure an API key, connect a supported ChatGPT / Codex subscription, or choose a local provider such as Ollama or LM Studio.
Open Vela AI to ask about a page, summarize a long read, or work through an idea. On Mac, enable Browser Control when you want the assistant to navigate or interact with websites. When it is off, Vela can offer an in-chat choice to enable it for a browser request.
Press Enter to send your message. If the assistant is already working, your next message waits in the queue. Shift–Enter inserts a new line. Use Stop to cancel the active task and its pending queue.
Local browser actions depend on the selected model’s tool support or ability to follow Vela’s action instructions.
A little more peace.
Open Settings → Privacy to configure content blocking and fingerprint protection. Use site permissions to decide which websites may use features such as the camera, microphone, and location.
Private browsing gives a separate temporary browsing session. Network settings include DNS choices, per-profile proxies, and Tor routing. Choose the connection that fits your task.
Read the privacy policy ↗A browser that feels like you.
Explore Settings → Appearance to change the theme. Arrange the toolbar around the tools you use, choose your search engine, and customize your new-tab page with favorites, news, and weather.
Session restore helps you return to your tabs. iCloud sync connects supported browsing data across your devices when enabled in Settings.
The useful things, built in.
Use the download manager to follow transfers and find completed files. Vela’s password manager can save, generate, and autofill logins, with biometric access on supported devices.
The performance monitor helps you inspect browser activity. Tab suspension can reduce the work done by background pages, and audio controls help you locate a playing tab.
Keep your hands on the keys.
Something not quite right?
Browse support questions, get in touch, or report a bug. On Mac, you can also use Help → Report a Bug directly in Vela.
Include the steps that led to the problem, what you expected, and what actually happened. Screenshots help make the issue easier to understand.