You know that annoying moment when you have downloaded an application – perfectly legally – from an ‘unidentified developer’ and your Mac decides you are not allowed to run it? Well that is pants! I realise Apple are only trying to protect you from the evils of the universe, but it really ticks me off that I don’t get an option to ‘open anyway’ right there and then. No… instead I need to go to system preferences and enable it, or right click the app icon to start with. This is just too tedious. It’s a feature called ‘Gatekeeper’, and it really is there to prevent malicious code being run on your machine.
In previous versions of OSX it was possible in System preferences to allow apps from ‘Anywhere’ to open, but in more recent versions that has ben taken away. Apparently we are not allowed to play with ‘Anything’ – only those from the App store or ‘identified’ developers (i.e. anyone who distributes through the App store).
OK – once again I get the need to protect us from our own stupidity, but it is taking it a little far, IMO.
So for all you geeks who want to return the option in system prefs to allow apps from ‘Anywhere’ just follow these steps:
- Quit system prefs if it is running
- Launch a terminal window
- type this:
sudo spctl --master-disable - Then enter your password.
that’s it – job done. Now you can open system preferences and see the welcome return of ‘Anywhere’ in your Gatekeeper panel.