Apple warns of upcoming macOS Full Disk Access changes

From the Apple Developer newsroom:

Some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could put users at risk, exposing everything on their systems—including files, mail, messages, and even browsing history—without users’ full knowledge and understanding. For communication apps, this can also compromise the privacy of the people users are communicating with.

Going forward, we will introduce additional controls to ensure that users who genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access can only do so with very explicit user action. Addressing this is critical. As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially.

This announcement follows recent coverage about AI agents such as Muse gaining access to personal information on macOS. From the article, it appears the author did grant Full Disk Access at some point, but either didn’t realise or was misguided by Muse.

Currently Full Disk Access is granted on a per-app basis in Settings > Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access. The following message is displayed on the settings page today:

Allow the applications below to access data like Mail, Messages, Safari, Home, Time Machine backups, and certain administrative settings for all users on this Mac.

When enabling an app for Full Disk Access, users also need enter a password or use Touch ID to approve the change.

Clearly the message in its current form isn’t effective. What remains to be seen is how Apple will change Full Disk Access to address this issue. The newsroom post suggests that the changes will be focused on “ensuring users clearly understand these risks before granting such access” but offers no further details.

Apple’s post specifically calls out backup apps as a use case for Full Disk Access. Could this mean that Apple is going to require a new entitlement for access which (at least initially) will only support backup apps and kill many popular macOS apps in the process?

And lets hope that they don’t take the easy way out, and add nagging alerts reminding users that Full Disk Access has been granted. We’ve been there before.

Nor should it be an opportunity to further entrench Siri AI as the only personal assistant that can access the personal context needed to make AI assistants work.

Instead, hopefully Apple can find a tasteful and workable solution that brings attention to the risks associated with granting Full Disk Access, while allowing power users to continue to use the apps they love.