Open Clash Verge for the first time and there are a dozen switches on screen. It is easy to poke at all of them. In practice only six need attention on day one; the rest can stay at their defaults.
Work through these in order and you should not need to come back.
1. Subscription: get a config in
Click Profiles in the left menu (some builds call it Configuration). There is an input box at the top — paste your full Clash subscription URL and click Import.
Once it succeeds you get a card showing the subscription name, data used and total, and the expiry date. Click that card so it is selected (highlighted border) — this is where most beginners stall, because an unselected profile is not applied.
Set the auto-update interval to 1440 minutes (24 hours). Anything more frequent is pointless — node lists do not change several times a day.
2. Proxy mode: leave it on Rule
There are three modes on the home screen:
| Mode | Behaviour | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Rule | Follows the rules in your config: local direct, foreign via node | Daily default, 99% of the time |
| Global | Everything goes through the current node, no exceptions | Testing a node, or when a rule misjudged a site |
| Direct | Everything goes direct, as if the proxy were off | Temporary comparison |
Keep Rule mode. Local sites go out over your own connection — faster, and it does not eat your subscription data. Only traffic that matches a proxy rule takes a node.
3. System proxy: turn it on
The System Proxy switch on the home screen writes Clash Verge into your Windows or macOS proxy settings, and browsers plus most applications follow automatically.
How it differs from TUN mode:
4. Pick a node: test latency first
Click Proxies on the left and you will see the groups and nodes from your subscription.
There is a lightning-bolt icon at the top right. Click it to test latency across every node in the group; a few seconds later each shows a figure in milliseconds.
- Green (under 200 ms): fine to use
- Amber (200–500 ms): usable, video may stutter occasionally
- Red (over 500 ms or timed out): skip it for now
5. Auto-launch and silent start
Two switches under Settings → General:
- Auto Launch: start Clash Verge when the computer starts
- Silent Start: launch without showing the main window, straight to the tray
Turn both on for the smoothest experience — after boot it just sits in the tray, and you click the tray icon when you need it.
There is usually also Auto enter lite mode (or "minimise to tray on close"). Worth enabling so clicking the X does not quit the whole program.
6. Core: confirm Mihomo is running
Settings → Clash Core shows the core version currently in use. It is Mihomo by default and normally needs no attention.
When would you update it?
- Your subscription gained a new protocol and the client reports
unsupported proxy type - The log keeps showing an error you have traced to a known core bug
Do not chase core releases otherwise. Running stably matters more than the version number.
Check it worked
Three things confirm you are set up:
That last item is the usual straggler on Windows: latency tests pass (the core makes those connections itself) but the browser gets nothing, because the firewall prompt on first launch was dismissed.
Where to go next
For day-to-day use, that is everything. If you want to go deeper:
- The three proxy modes and which to use
- What TUN mode is and when to enable it
- Port settings explained
