Apple Announces Plan to Impose New Full Disk Access Controls on Mac Developers

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Today, on its developer blog, Apple announced plans to “…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.” The company says it’s doing so because of the dangers posed by AI agents.According to Apple’s post: Full Disk Access largely sidesteps these controls in order to allow backup apps to function properly on the Mac.That’s nonsense. Looking at this MacBook Pro, only a handful of apps to which I’ve granted Full Disk Access are backup apps. Others include the Finder replacement Bloom, launchers like Alfred, the wonderful selection utility PopClip, Apple’s own Pixelmator Pro, Setapp, TestFlight, Unread, Supercharge, Madden NFL 27 Arcade Edition, Hazel, and many others. It’s a diverse selection of apps covering everything from Apple’s own apps to Mac utilities that are longtime favorites of MacStories readers, and even one Apple Arcade game.What is valid is that AI agents pose risks if common-sense steps aren’t taken to limit their access to your data. So while the suggestion that Full Disk Access is just for backups doesn’t pass the smell test, Apple’s concerns about agents are well-founded.The thing that bothers me about this post, though, is that it’s vague. On the one hand, it seems to suggest that users will simply have to jump through additional explicit hoops to grant Full Disk Access to their agents and other apps. On the other hand, claiming that Full Disk Access was designed solely for backup apps raises red flags that could signal that the company intends to restrict the kinds of apps that can use Full Disk Access. I sure hope not.Even if you want nothing to do with AI agents, the changes that Apple is contemplating could impact a wide variety of the Mac apps you rely on every day. Apple needs to find a way enable reasonable customer protections without hamstringing the Mac’s utility.