Why Full Disk Access Matters—and What Apple Should Fix

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Originally published at: Why Full Disk Access Matters—and What Apple Should Fix - TidBITS

Apple’s recent statement about tightening Full Disk Access controls has triggered a bit of a kerfuffle in the Mac community (see “Apple Plans to Tighten Full Disk Access Controls,” 5 October 2026). To gauge how much TidBITS readers depend on Full Disk Access, we polled readers on how many apps they had granted it to. The results were clear: 63% of the more than 200 people who voted said they had granted Full Disk Access to 6 or more apps, with over half of those people saying they had given 11 or more apps that level of access. In short, Full Disk Access is essential to how many of us use our Macs.

At the same time, Full Disk Access feels a bit like a Band-Aid, partly because Apple hasn’t put enough thought into more granular permissions, forcing many apps to rely on Full Disk Access even when they don’t need all its capabilities. For instance, utilities like Mail Archiver X only need access to the Mail data, not everything else. Even if an app claims to need access to only one thing, there’s no way to verify it isn’t reading something else as well. There’s also a real difference between an app merely needing to read data from protected locations (such as a file search tool like Easy Find) and needing to write to them (such as a backup app like Carbon Copy Cloner that needs to restore data in protected locations).

Worse, because there is no API that lets apps check whether they have Full Disk Access or request it from the user, this all-encompassing permission lacks a consistent interface from Apple. Each app has to explain why it needs Full Disk Access in its own way, and there’s no guarantee that it will do so clearly or even accurately. Here’s how I handled it in SetShot.

SetShot interface for Full Disk Access

Further muddying the issue is the fact that all an app needs to do to appear in the Full Disk Access list is attempt to open a protected file. As a result, most people have numerous apps listed that haven’t explicitly asked for permission, haven’t been given permission, and still seem to work fine.

macOS Full Disk Access settings listing apps with toggle switches; OmniDiskSweeper, OpenDisk, and SetShot are enabled

How Apple Could Improve Full Disk Access

Let’s break out suggestions for how Apple can address these problems:

  • Additional permissions: Apple has been adding specific permissions to macOS for some time. Calendars, Contacts, Media & Apple Music, Photos, Reminders—all of these have their own permissions, and adding new ones for Mail, Messages, and browser data would let many utilities ask for only what they need rather than falling back on Full Disk Access.
  • Read/write granularity: From a security perspective, there’s a big difference between allowing an app to read protected data and write to protected locations. Ideally, Apple would let apps request Full Disk Access in read-only or read-write mode.
  • Native interface: Although dialog fatigue from nonstop permission requests is a real problem, it’s still better if Full Disk Access requests come from native Apple dialogs that explain why the permission is being requested.
  • Auditability: In iOS and iPadOS, Apple provides the App Privacy Report, which gives at least some sense of which apps have used which protected services. Apple should bring the App Privacy Report to macOS and make it more complete.
  • Request/check API: Developers who need Full Disk Access for their apps should have a real public API that lets them request access and check whether it has been granted and not revoked. (Right now, the only way to do this is by attempting to read a protected file.) This would eliminate the problem of apps appearing in the Full Disk Access list when they don’t really need it.

Given that Apple’s statement about Full Disk Access seems to have been prompted by the release of Meta’s Muse AI agent, I would suggest Apple think more carefully about how such agents should be handled. They may legitimately need Full Disk Access, along with numerous other permissions, but beyond what would appear in an App Privacy Report, I would like to see them maintain complete logs of every permission-enabled action they take on your computer. Preferably in human-readable form.

Audit Your Full Disk Access List

Only time will tell what Apple will really do. In the meantime, the comments following our poll offer insight into both the categories of apps that legitimately need Full Disk Access and those that commonly appear but don’t need it. From a practical security perspective, you should grant Full Disk Access only when it is absolutely necessary, so I recommend opening System Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access and reviewing the entries. You have three options:

  • Grant access: You likely won’t need to grant access to existing apps, but if you removed it in the past from apps that need it to operate correctly, you may want to re-enable it.
  • Remove access: If you previously granted access to apps that may not need it or that you no longer trust, toggle the switch off to remove access.
  • Remove the app: For apps in your list that don’t need Full Disk Access, I strongly encourage you to select them and click the minus button at the bottom to remove them from the list entirely. Don’t worry about making mistakes here—if you accidentally remove an app that needs Full Disk Access, I’m betting it will alert you the next time you use it.

Apps That Legitimately Need Full Disk Access

Here are the categories of apps TidBITS readers use that require Full Disk Access to do their jobs.

  • Backup and synchronization: To copy all your data, apps in this category must be allowed to read every file on the system; to restore, they must be able to write anywhere. Apps in this category include Acronis, Arq, Back-in-Time, Backblaze, BackupLoupe, Carbon Copy Cloner, ChronoSync/ChronoAgent, FreeFileSync, GoodSync, Restic, SuperDuper, and Syncthing. (But Mike Bombich says you can delete com.bombich.ccchelper from the list if you’ve upgraded to Carbon Copy Cloner 7.1 or later.)
  • Anti-malware: To identify malware wherever it has installed itself on your system, these apps need Full Disk Access to scan the entire disk. Apps in this category include Avira, BlockBlock, ClamXAV, DetectX Swift, KnockKnock, Malwarebytes, RansomWhere, SilentKnight, and Sophos.
  • File search/Spotlight replacements: A search tool is useful only if it can look everywhere on your disk. Apps in this category include Cling, EasyFind, Everywhere, Find Any File, HoudahSpot, and ProFind.
  • Disk space analysis: These apps can’t accurately map what’s using your space unless they can access the whole volume. Apps in this category include DaisyDisk, Disk Diag, EtreCheck/EtreCheckPro, GrandPerspective, OmniDiskSweeper, and OpenDisk.
  • Cleaning apps and uninstallers: An app and its support files can end up in protected directories, so cleaning apps and uninstallers need Full Disk Access to find and remove them all. Apps in this category include AppCleaner, AppDelete, CleanMyMac, Disk Drill, Hazel, and Pearcleaner.
  • Finder replacements and launchers: You rely on these apps to browse and jump to any file or folder, so limiting them to part of the disk would defeat their purpose. Apps in this category include Alfred, Bloom, Commander One, Default Folder X, ForkLift, LaunchBar, Path Finder, and Raycast.
  • System maintenance and tuning: These apps perform system-wide repairs, clear caches, and make configuration changes that touch protected areas across the disk. Apps in this category include Cocktail, Deeper, MacPilot, Maintenance, OnyX, TechTool Pro, and TinkerTool System.
  • System daemons: Many people were confused by the presence of these Apple system daemons in the list, but they need Full Disk Access only when the scope is the whole disk. smbd needs it if you’re sharing your entire filesystem; sshd-keygen-wrapper needs it so remote SSH/SFTP sessions can reach the whole disk; siriactionsd probably appears because the Shortcuts app can touch files across app containers—leave it off unless a shortcut has problems without it.
  • Terminal and shells: These apps only need Full Disk Access when you run a command that touches protected files—for example, Ghostty running a backup tool, or Homebrew needing to write to /Applications. Apps in this category include Ghostty, iTerm, and macOS’s own Terminal.
  • Apps that need one specific protected location: Each of these apps needs only a single protected store, but macOS currently offers no finer control, so they require Full Disk Access. This is the group where granular permissions would help most. Apps in this category include BookMacster (browser data), Cookie (browser cookies), EagleFiler (Mail and Messages import), HistoryHound (browser history), Mail Archiver X (Mail), MAX Messages (Messages), Notes Exporter Pro (Notes), and SpamSieve (Mail).
  • Apps that optionally need Full Disk Access: Some apps work fine without Full Disk Access but may need it for specific features. Apps in this category include Keyboard Maestro (for macros that touch protected files), iMazing (if you need to access iPhone backups stored in protected locations), Parallels Toolbox (for its Clean Drive tool), and SetShot (to read additional settings files).

Apps That Don’t Need Full Disk Access

Conversely, TidBITS readers found numerous apps in their Full Disk Access lists that probably never intended to appear there because they don’t need that level of access. Although these categories are far from comprehensive, they should give you an idea of which apps you can either disable or remove entirely.

  • App updaters: Most updaters only read an app’s version info and update feed in the Applications folder, which isn’t a protected location. Apps in this category include Latest and Updatest, plus bundled auto-updaters like Adobe Update Helper, Box Autoupdater, Floodtide, GoogleUpdater, MacUpdater, and Microsoft AutoUpdate.
  • Cloud storage and sync clients: Their sync folders aren’t protected locations, so they should work fine without Full Disk Access. Apps in this category include Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Mylio, and OneDrive.
  • Web browsers: They may need access to Files & Folders if you want to open a local file, but you absolutely don’t want to grant them Full Disk Access because it could let malware running in the browser access sensitive parts of the file system. Apps in this category include Arc, Brave, Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Orion, Safari, Vivaldi, and undoubtedly others.
  • Video, meeting, and communication apps: They have no legitimate reason to read your whole disk. Apps in this category include WhatsApp and Zoom.
  • Document, design, and creative apps: Opening and saving through the standard file dialog or Finder already grants per-file access automatically, so they don’t need blanket access. Apps in this category include Adobe Lightroom, Figma, FileMaker Pro, GraphicConverter, Microsoft Excel, Numbers, Photo Mechanic, PowerPhotos, ScreenFlow, and Topaz Photo.
  • Clipboard and menu-bar utilities: Apps like this watch the clipboard, manage the menu bar, or eject disks—none of which requires reading your files. Apps in this category include Bartender, ClipBook, Copy’ Em, iStat Menus, and Jettison.
  • Other apps that work without it: Cask Hub, Jump Desktop Connect, Pacifist, and Stats were flagged in the discussion as appearing in the Full Disk Access list yet functioning normally when denied.
  • Apple’s own apps: Image Capture, Photos, and Preview were automatically added for some users, but work through normal access paths, so disabling them breaks nothing.

My question is how long it will take Apple to make changes here, and if we’ll see interim changes in macOS 27 but a more fully architected system in macOS 28.

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OneDrive’s Desktop and Documents folder sync requires Full Disk Access.