It wo n’t be surprising to regular readers of Mac 911 that your close correspondent and his family routinely have trouble across their gadget and military service , some of which lead to columns in this fine publication . The only time that is jarring is when I search for a root and find that I am apparently the classical source for an answer – that does n’t puzzle out for me .
That ’s the case with resetting Privacy preferences that set aside non - Apple macOS apps to perform sure tasks that incur a seclusion risk . For example , Default Folder , Dropbox , and LaunchBar all require Accessibility accession for how they interact with Indian file in the Finder . Backblaze and Default Folder need Full Disk Access to fill-in or look across your loudness .
You find Privacy context in macOS Monterey and early inSystem Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy , while macOS Ventura place them inSystem configurations > Privacy & Securityunder aPrivacyheading .
As I wrote in June 2021 , the preference database for a subset of privacy options that refer to app - based permissions is fragile and can become corrupted for no proficient cause . In “ How to fix macOS Accessibility permission when an app ca n’t be enable , ” I explain using a Terminal - based solution for reset the underlying database in a pinch .
What befall when this columnist tries his own advice , provided by Jon Gotow , maker ofDefault Folder , and it fails ? He e-mail Mr. Gotow again for more advice . Jon refer me tothis first-class article by iOS developer Robin Kunde from 2020 . Kunde get the picture into utilities and more esoteric way to determine what ’s awry , but ends with a elbow room to pass over the so - holler TCC database ( nominate after “ Transparency , Consent , and Control , ” ostensibly ) that contain these preferences .
He propose restarting into recovering , ride the datum volume ( required for macOS Catalina or later ) , and using a Terminal statement to remove a file called TCC.db base at"/Volumes / YOUR loudness HERE / Library / software Support / com.apple . TCC / TCC.db " .
I sample that — and my setup remained fully broken :
There ’s one further step you may take , I have get a line . It ’s fortunately not technically destructive , in that macOS recreates the pieces you ask to cancel .
As with all advice about delete single file that the system relies on , however , verify you have a full Time Machine backup or clone , and proceed at your own risk of infection .
Here ’s how to continue with a bit more handholding than Kunde ’s web log :
Here ’s what this looks like as a transcript for my volumeMister Electron . in step 7 to 10 above . For successful operations except thelscommand , you will pick up no feedback ; you only get a reception if something fail , like a file go bad to be cancel .
cd “ /Volumes / Mister Electron - Data / program Support / com.apple . TCC/ ” # lsAdhocSignatureCache TCC.db # rm AdhocSignatureCache # rm TCC.db # cd .. # rmdir com.apple . TCC
After you restart , you should be prompted by apps that demand Privacy permissions . This time , when you pilot to the right location , you should see a list of those apps and be able to tally a loge next to each of them .
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