👋 HEY, IT'S RAJA

Wednesday's issue was about one permission on your Mac. Today, the other four that matter, and the honest reason this is worth ten minutes.

These permission dialogs always arrive at the worst moment. You are mid-task, an app needs something, you click Allow because you want to get on with it. Individually that is a reasonable decision every time. Collectively, after a few years, it means a list of apps has quiet access to things you would not grant them today.

Everything below lives in one place: System Settings → Privacy & Security. Scroll down the sidebar and you will find each list.

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The big one. This is not access to a folder, it is the master key to everything on the machine, including the databases behind Messages, Mail, and Safari. macOS cannot grant it narrowly, which is why it makes you go into Settings and do it by hand rather than clicking Allow in a dialog.

Who belongs here: backup software, disk utilities, some security tools, and anything you have deliberately given the run of your Mac. Very little else. If you see something on this list and cannot immediately explain why it is there, that is the one to remove.

Apple's own description is blunt: this shows apps that run scripts and system commands to control your Mac. That is the actual scope. An app here can drive your machine as if it were you, and this is the permission most automation and AI tools quietly rely on.

Who belongs here: window managers, text expanders, automation and macro tools, remote support software. All legitimate. The problem is that this list accumulates trial apps you installed once in 2023.

Called Screen & System Audio Recording on recent macOS. An app on this list can see whatever is on your display, which includes the window you forgot was open, the password manager mid-copy, and every document you happen to have visible.

Who belongs here: video conferencing, screenshot and recording tools, screen sharing software. Anything else on that list should have a very good reason.

Apple's wording again: apps that can monitor your keyboard, mouse or trackpad even while you are using other apps. Read that twice. The functional description of that capability, in other contexts, is a keylogger.

Who belongs here: keyboard customisation tools, some launchers, certain gaming peripherals. It is a short list for most people, and it should be.

The quietest of the five and the easiest to accumulate. This governs which apps can control other apps through Apple events. It is not one switch, it is a tree: this app may control Mail, that app may control Finder, this other one may control Messages.

Who belongs here: genuine automation tools you use. Expand each entry and read the sub-list rather than glancing at the top level, because that is where the interesting grants hide.

Do not turn everything off. That is how you spend Monday morning working out why your screenshot tool stopped working.

Go list by list. For each entry ask one question: do I still use this app, and does it still need this? Revoke anything where the answer to either half is no. If something breaks afterwards, macOS will prompt you to re-grant it, and at that moment you will be making the decision properly, with context, instead of mid-task.

Most of you will find two or three things you forgot about. That is the expected result, not a sign anything is wrong.

Ten minutes, and then it is done for another year.

Big fortnight ahead — the iPhone event is close now, and I will have plenty to say about it.

Keep it useful,

Raja · The Useful Tech

P.S. Enjoyed this? Forward it to a friend who loves their Apple gear a little too much.