Apple to tighten macOS Full Disk Access controls

Apple's stated rationale is that Full Disk Access was designed as an escape hatch for backup apps, letting them work properly by bypassing most of the privacy controls Apple puts in front of developers. The company now says some developers have used that permission in ways that put users at risk, leaving files, mail, messages, and even browsing history exposed without users fully understanding it — and in communication apps, it says, the privacy of the people they talk to can be harmed as well. The remedy Apple describes is narrower than a ban: additional controls so that only users who genuinely want what it calls this "extraordinary level of access" can grant it, after an explicit action and a clear view of the risks.

The announcement lands after a September argument, which Apple does not mention by name, over Meta's Mac app for its AI agent Muse. Inc. columnist Jason Aten posted on September 19 that Muse monitored Mac notifications including messages and used that highly personal information in conversations without disclosure, showing a screen where Muse apologized for proceeding without permission. Meta Superintelligence Labs executive David Singleton countered the same day that the integration is opt-in, requires Full Disk Access at the macOS system level and an enabled message connector in Muse, and involves three steps of app-level permission and built-in macOS protections that a bug in the app could not bypass.

That exchange is the clearest illustration of the tension Apple is responding to: the same permission that keeps a backup tool running can, in an app that reads messages, sit underneath an argument about consent and disclosure. How much the new controls actually change behavior may hinge on details Apple has not yet given — when the change ships and what the explicit action looks like — and on whether agent apps keep treating broad disk access as a normal part of setup.