What Is Split Tunneling
Split tunneling lets you exclude specific apps or domains from the VPN tunnel. Traffic from excluded apps goes directly to the internet, while everything else stays encrypted through the VPN.
This is useful when you need certain services to see your real IP β video calls that require low latency, banking apps that flag VPN connections, or local network devices like printers.
How It Works in Astria VPN
Astria VPN offers two ways to configure split tunneling:
Apps tab β browse your installed applications and exclude them with one click. The app automatically maps each application to its known domains. Over 100 popular apps are supported: Apple services, messengers (Telegram, WhatsApp, Signal, Discord, Slack), social media, browsers, JetBrains IDEs, Adobe, Steam, and more.
Advanced tab β manually enter domains for fine-grained control. Supports standard domains, wildcard patterns, and xray routing syntax for power users.
A master toggle lets you enable or disable split tunneling without losing your configuration.
When to Use It
Banking and finance. Many banks flag VPN connections as suspicious. Exclude your banking app to avoid locked accounts while keeping everything else protected.
Video conferencing. Zoom, Teams, and FaceTime work better with direct connections. Exclude them for lower latency and higher quality.
Local network access. Need to reach a printer, NAS, or smart home device? Exclude those connections from the tunnel.
Work apps. Corporate apps with geo-restrictions can go direct while personal browsing stays private.
Important Notes
Split tunneling works with VLESS+Reality and SS+WS+TLS protocols, which use xray's domain routing engine. It does not work with Shadowsocks mode β the app displays a warning if you try to use both.
When split tunneling is active, a badge on the connect screen shows how many apps are excluded.
Privacy Consideration
Excluded traffic is not encrypted by the VPN. Only exclude apps where you understand the tradeoff β the convenience of a direct connection in exchange for that specific traffic being visible to your network.