How a security feature trying to block malicious documents has rendered a Finder feature useless, causing users and developers problems.
quarantine
Two sets of log excerpts demonstrate how macOS can prevent a user from opening a document, then mislead them into thinking it’s the app at fault.
You double-click to open a document, and see a security alert telling you it’s from an unidentified developer and your security settings prohibit opening. What the hell?
Second of two, here looking at quarantine of documents, what it means, how it occurs. Much more common than apps, but mysterious.
First of two articles – this looking at how quarantine works for apps and other executables, details of the flag itself, how it behaves, and more.
A simple utility to remove the many quarantine flags which are written when sandboxed apps open movies, PDF, JPEG and other files, and can cause problems.
Do we really need tens of thousands of spurious quarantine flags attached to perfectly good documents?
How the quarantine flag for apps and that for docs opened in sandboxed apps differ, and why there are now so many quarantine flags to trip us up.
Have you noticed quarantine flags appearing on movies and PDFs which have never been downloaded? Here’s a possible explanation.
Apple’s latest information on notarization can appear alarming and contradictory. Do you need to notarize your own apps and scripts? More helpful guidance.
The Eclectic Light Company 