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On File System Permissions
Modern versions of macOS use a file system permission model that’s far more complex than the traditional BSD rwx model, and this post is my attempt at explaining that model. If you have a question about this, post it here on DevForums. Put your thread in the App & System Services > Core OS topic area and tag it with Files and Storage. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" On File System Permissions Modern versions of macOS have five different file system permission mechanisms: Traditional BSD permissions Access control lists (ACLs) App Sandbox Mandatory access control (MAC) Endpoint Security (ES) The first two were introduced a long time ago and rarely trip folks up. The second two are newer, more complex, and specific to macOS, and thus are the source of some confusion. Finally, Endpoint Security allows third-party developers to deny file system operations based on their own criteria. This post offers explanations and advice about all of these mechanisms. Error Codes App Sandbox and the mandatory access control system are both implemented using macOS’s sandboxing infrastructure. When a file system operation fails, check the error to see whether it was blocked by this sandboxing infrastructure. If an operation was blocked by BSD permissions or ACLs, it fails with EACCES (Permission denied, 13). If it was blocked by something else, it’ll fail with EPERM (Operation not permitted, 1). If you’re using Foundation’s FileManager, these error are both reported as Foundation errors, for example, the NSFileReadNoPermissionError error. To recover the underlying error, get the NSUnderlyingErrorKey property from the info dictionary. App Sandbox File system access within the App Sandbox is controlled by two factors. The first is the entitlements on the main executable. There are three relevant groups of entitlements: The com.apple.security.app-sandbox entitlement enables the App Sandbox. This denies access to all file system locations except those on a built-in allowlist (things like /System) or within the app’s containers. The various “standard location” entitlements extend the sandbox to include their corresponding locations. The various “file access temporary exceptions” entitlements extend the sandbox to include the items listed in the entitlement. Collectively this is known as your static sandbox. The second factor is dynamic sandbox extensions. The system issues these extensions to your sandbox based on user behaviour. For example, if the user selects a file in the open panel, the system issues a sandbox extension to your process so that it can access that file. The type of extension is determined by the main executable’s entitlements: com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only results in an extension that grants read-only access. com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write results in an extension that grants read/write access. Note There’s currently no way to get a dynamic sandbox extension that grants executable access. For all the gory details, see this post. These dynamic sandbox extensions are tied to your process; they go away when your process terminates. To maintain persistent access to an item, use a security-scoped bookmark. See Accessing files from the macOS App Sandbox. To pass access between processes, use an implicit security scoped bookmark, that is, a bookmark that was created without an explicit security scope (no .withSecurityScope flag) and without disabling the implicit security scope (no .withoutImplicitSecurityScope flag)). If you have access to a directory — regardless of whether that’s via an entitlement or a dynamic sandbox extension — then, in general, you have access to all items in the hierarchy rooted at that directory. This does not overrule the MAC protection discussed below. For example, if the user grants you access to ~/Library, that does not give you access to ~/Library/Mail because the latter is protected by MAC. Finally, the discussion above is focused on a new sandbox, the thing you get when you launch a sandboxed app from the Finder. If a sandboxed process starts a child process, that child process inherits its sandbox from its parent. For information on what happens in that case, see the Note box in Enabling App Sandbox Inheritance. IMPORTANT The child process inherits its parent process’s sandbox regardless of whether it has the com.apple.security.inherit entitlement. That entitlement exists primarily to act as a marker for App Review. App Review requires that all main executables have the com.apple.security.app-sandbox entitlement, and that entitlements starts a new sandbox by default. Thus, any helper tool inside your app needs the com.apple.security.inherit entitlement to trigger inheritance. However, if you’re not shipping on the Mac App Store you can leave off both of these entitlement and the helper process will inherit its parent’s sandbox just fine. The same applies if you run a built-in executable, like /bin/sh, as a child process. When the App Sandbox blocks something, it might generates a sandbox violation report. For information on how to view these reports, see Discovering and diagnosing App Sandbox violations. To learn more about the App Sandbox, see the various links in App Sandbox Resources. For information about how to embed a helper tool in a sandboxed app, see Embedding a Command-Line Tool in a Sandboxed App. Mandatory Access Control Mandatory access control (MAC) has been a feature of macOS for many releases, but it’s become a lot more prominent since macOS 10.14. There are many flavours of MAC but the ones you’re most likely to encounter are: Full Disk Access (macOS 10.14 and later) Files and Folders (macOS 10.15 and later) App bundle protection (macOS 13 and later) App container protection (macOS 14 and later) App group container protection (macOS 15 and later) Data Vaults (see below) and other internal techniques used by various macOS subsystems Mandatory access control, as the name suggests, is mandatory; it’s not an opt-in like the App Sandbox. Rather, all processes on the system, including those running as root, as subject to MAC. Data Vaults are not a third-party developer opportunity. See this post if you’re curious. In the Full Disk Access and Files and Folders cases, users grant a program a MAC privilege using System Settings > Privacy & Security. Some MAC privileges are per user (Files and Folders) and some are system wide (Full Disk Access). If you’re not sure, run this simple test: On a Mac with two users, log in as user A and enable the MAC privilege for a program. Now log in as user B. Does the program have the privilege? If a process tries to access an item restricted by MAC, the system may prompt the user to grant it access there and then. For example, if an app tries to access the desktop, you’ll see an alert like this: “AAA” would like to access files in your Desktop folder. [Don’t Allow] [OK] To customise this message, set Files and Folders properties in your Info.plist. This system only displays this alert once. It remembers the user’s initial choice and returns the same result thereafter. This relies on your code having a stable code signing identity. If your code is unsigned, or signed ad hoc (Signed to Run Locally in Xcode parlance), the system can’t tell that version N+1 of your code is the same as version N, and thus you’ll encounter excessive prompts. Note For information about how that works, see TN3127 Inside Code Signing: Requirements. The Files and Folders prompts only show up if the process is running in a GUI login session. If not, the operation is allowed or denied based on existing information. If there’s no existing information, the operation is denied by default. For more information about app and app group container protection, see the links in Trusted Execution Resources. For more information about app groups in general, see App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony On managed systems the site admin can use the com.apple.TCC.configuration-profile-policy payload to assign MAC privileges. For testing purposes you can reset parts of TCC using the tccutil command-line tool. For general information about that tool, see its man page. For a list of TCC service names, see the posts on this thread. Note TCC stands for transparency, consent, and control. It’s the subsystem within macOS that manages most of the privileges visible in System Settings > Privacy & Security. TCC has no API surface, but you see its name in various places, including the above-mentioned configuration profile payload and command-line tool, and the name of its accompanying daemon, tccd. While tccutil is an easy way to do basic TCC testing, the most reliable way to test TCC is in a VM, restoring to a fresh snapshot between each test. If you want to try this out, crib ideas from Testing a Notarised Product. The MAC privilege mechanism is heavily dependent on the concept of responsible code. For example, if an app contains a helper tool and the helper tool triggers a MAC prompt, we want: The app’s name and usage description to appear in the alert. The user’s decision to be recorded for the whole app, not that specific helper tool. That decision to show up in System Settings under the app’s name. For this to work the system must be able to tell that the app is the responsible code for the helper tool. The system has various heuristics to determine this and it works reasonably well in most cases. However, it’s possible to break this link. I haven’t fully research this but my experience is that this most often breaks when the child process does something ‘odd’ to break the link, such as trying to daemonise itself. If you’re building a launchd daemon or agent and you find that it’s not correctly attributed to your app, add the AssociatedBundleIdentifiers property to your launchd property list. See the launchd.plist man page for the details. Scripting MAC presents some serious challenges for scripting because scripts are run by interpreters and the system can’t distinguish file system operations done by the interpreter from those done by the script. For example, if you have a script that needs to manipulate files on your desktop, you wouldn’t want to give the interpreter that privilege because then any script could do that. The easiest solution to this problem is to package your script as a standalone program that MAC can use for its tracking. This may be easy or hard depending on the specific scripting environment. For example, AppleScript makes it easy to export a script as a signed app, but that’s not true for shell scripts. TCC and Main Executables TCC expects its bundled clients — apps, app extensions, and so on — to use a native main executable. That is, it expects the CFBundleExecutable property to be the name of a Mach-O executable. If your product uses a script as its main executable, you’re likely to encounter TCC problems. To resolve these, switch to using a Mach-O executable. For an example of how you might do that, see this post. Endpoint Security Endpoint Security (ES) is a general mechanism for third-party products to enforce custom security policies on the Mac. An ES client asks ES to send it events when specific security-relevant operations occur. These events can be notifications or authorisations. In the case of authorisation events, the ES client must either allow or deny the operation. As you might imagine, the set of security-relevant operations includes file system operations. For example, when you open a file using the open system call, ES delivers the ES_EVENT_TYPE_AUTH_OPEN event to any interested ES clients. If one of those ES client denies the operation, the open system call fails with EPERM. For more information about ES, see the Endpoint Security framework documentation. Revision History 2025-11-04 Added a discussion of Endpoint Security. Made numerous minor editorial changes. 2024-11-08 Added info about app group container protection. Clarified that Data Vaults are just one example of the techniques used internally by macOS. Made other editorial changes. 2023-06-13 Replaced two obsolete links with links to shiny new official documentation: Accessing files from the macOS App Sandbox and Discovering and diagnosing App Sandbox violations. Added a short discussion of app container protection and a link to WWDC 2023 Session 10053 What’s new in privacy. 2023-04-07 Added a link to my post about executable permissions. Fixed a broken link. 2023-02-10 In TCC and Main Executables, added a link to my native trampoline code. Introduced the concept of an implicit security scoped bookmark. Introduced AssociatedBundleIdentifiers. Made other minor editorial changes. 2022-04-26 Added an explanation of the TCC initialism. Added a link to Viewing Sandbox Violation Reports.  Added the TCC and Main Executables section. Made significant editorial changes. 2022-01-10 Added a discussion of the file system hierarchy. 2021-04-26 First posted.
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Files and Storage Resources
General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Core OS Forums tags: Files and Storage, Foundation, FSKit, File Provider, Finder Sync, Disk Arbitration, APFS Foundation > Files and Data Persistence documentation Low-level file system APIs are documented in UNIX manual pages File System Programming Guide archived documentation About Apple File System documentation Apple File System Guide archived documentation File system changes introduced in iOS 17 forums post On File System Permissions forums post Extended Attributes and Zip Archives forums post Unpacking Apple Archives forums post Creating new file systems: FSKit framework documentation Building a passthrough file system sample code File Provider framework documentation Finder Sync framework documentation App Extension Programming Guide > App Extension Types > Finder Sync archived documentation Managing storage: Disk Arbitration framework documentation Disk Arbitration Programming Guide archived documentation Mass Storage Device Driver Programming Guide archived documentation Device File Access Guide for Storage Devices archived documentation BlockStorageDeviceDriverKit framework documentation Volume format references: Apple File System Reference TN1150 HFS Plus Volume Format Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
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NSFileSandboxingRequestRelatedItemExtension: Failed to issue extension
Hi there, I have an SwiftUI app that opens a user selected audio file (wave). For each audio file an additional file exists containing events that were extracted from the audio file. This additional file has the same filename and uses the extension bcCalls. I load the audio file using FileImporter view modifier and within access the audio file with a security scoped bookmark. That works well. After loading the audio I create a CallsSidecar NSFilePresenter with the url of the audio file. I make the presenter known to the NSFileCoordinator and upon this add it to the FileCoordinator. This fails with NSFileSandboxingRequestRelatedItemExtension: Failed to issue extension for; Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=3 "No such process" My Info.plist contains an entry for the document with NSIsRelatedItemType set to YES I am using this kind of FilePresenter code in various live apps developed some years ago. Now when starting from scratch on a fresh macOS26 system with most current Xcode I do not manage to get it running. Any ideas welcome! Here is the code: struct ContentView: View { @State private var sonaImg: CGImage? @State private var calls: Array<CallMeasurements> = Array() @State private var soundContainer: BatSoundContainer? @State private var importPresented: Bool = false var body: some View { VStack { Image(systemName: "globe") .imageScale(.large) .foregroundStyle(.tint) Text("Hello, world!") if self.sonaImg != nil { Image(self.sonaImg!, scale: 1.0, orientation: .left, label: Text("Sonagram")) } if !(self.calls.isEmpty) { List(calls) {aCall in Text("\(aCall.callNumber)") } } Button("Load sound file") { importPresented.toggle() } } .fileImporter(isPresented: $importPresented, allowedContentTypes: [.audio, UTType(filenameExtension: "raw")!], onCompletion: { result in switch result { case .success(let url): let gotAccess = url.startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() if !gotAccess { return } if let soundContainer = try? BatSoundContainer(with: url) { self.soundContainer = soundContainer self.sonaImg = soundContainer.overviewSonagram(expectedWidth: 800) let callsSidecar = CallsSidecar(withSoundURL: url) let data = callsSidecar.readData() print(data) } url.stopAccessingSecurityScopedResource() case .failure(let error): // handle error print(error) } }) .padding() } } The file presenter according to the WWDC 19 example: class CallsSidecar: NSObject, NSFilePresenter { lazy var presentedItemOperationQueue = OperationQueue.main var primaryPresentedItemURL: URL? var presentedItemURL: URL? init(withSoundURL audioURL: URL) { primaryPresentedItemURL = audioURL presentedItemURL = audioURL.deletingPathExtension().appendingPathExtension("bcCalls") } func readData() -> Data? { var data: Data? var error: NSError? NSFileCoordinator.addFilePresenter(self) let coordinator = NSFileCoordinator.init(filePresenter: self) NSFileCoordinator.addFilePresenter(self) coordinator.coordinate(readingItemAt: presentedItemURL!, options: [], error: &error) { url in data = try! Data.init(contentsOf: url) } return data } } And from Info.plist <key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key> <array> <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key> <array> <string>bcCalls</string> </array> <key>CFBundleTypeName</key> <string>bcCalls document</string> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>None</string> <key>LSHandlerRank</key> <string>Alternate</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>com.apple.property-list</string> </array> <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key> <false/> <key>NSIsRelatedItemType</key> <true/> </dict> <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key> <array> <string>wav</string> <string>wave</string> </array> <key>CFBundleTypeName</key> <string>Windows wave</string> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>Editor</string> <key>LSHandlerRank</key> <string>Alternate</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>com.microsoft.waveform-audio</string> </array> <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>NSDocumentClass</key> <string></string> </dict> </array> Note that BatSoundContainer is a custom class for loading audio of various undocumented formats as well as wave, Flac etc. and this is working well displaying a sonogram of the audio. Thx, Volker
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Supported public API to open containing iOS app from Share Extension for image/PDF share sheet imports
Hello Apple Developer Forums, We are building an iOS app that needs to receive images and PDFs shared from the system share sheet. The sources include Screenshots, Photos, Files, and third-party apps. The desired user experience is similar to apps such as ChatGPT or Claude: when the user taps our app in the share sheet, the main containing app opens and starts importing or uploading the shared image or PDF. We are trying to understand the supported public API for this behavior. Why opening the containing app is important For our use case, it is important that the containing app opens during the share flow. The import/upload operation depends on the user’s authenticated session. If the Share Extension attempts to upload the file directly, the auth token available to the extension could be missing, expired, or invalid. We would prefer not to make the Share Extension responsible for authentication-dependent behavior such as: validating the user session refreshing tokens handling expired credentials presenting login or re-authentication UI owning upload retry logic tied to auth state In our architecture, authentication and token refresh are owned by the containing app. The Share Extension should ideally only receive the shared file, persist it in an app group container, and hand off to the main app. The main app would then validate auth state, refresh tokens if needed, and perform the import/upload. So the desired flow is: Share Extension receives image/PDF → Share Extension stores file in app group container → Containing app opens → Containing app validates auth/session state → Containing app imports/uploads the file The alternative flow is problematic for us: Share Extension receives image/PDF → Share Extension attempts upload directly → Upload may fail if auth token is expired or unavailable → Share Extension would need auth/session responsibilities We are trying to avoid having an authentication dependency inside the Share Extension implementation. What we have tried CFBundleDocumentTypes We added document type support for: public.image public.png public.jpeg public.heic public.heif com.adobe.pdf This works for some document-open flows, such as opening files from Files or Photos in certain cases. However, it does not make the app appear reliably as a share target from Screenshot Share or from some third-party app share sheets. App Intents We tried using App Intents with IntentFile and: static var openAppWhenRun: Bool = true However, this does not seem to create a general-purpose share-sheet receiver for arbitrary image or PDF NSItemProvider payloads. Share Extension We also implemented a Share Extension that: Receives the shared NSItemProvider. Stores the image or PDF in an app group container. Attempts to open the containing app. However: NSExtensionContext.open(_:completionHandler:) does not appear to foreground the containing app from a Share Extension in the way we need. We also tested responder-chain openURL: trampoline approaches, but those do not work reliably and appear to be unsupported as a public API contract. Questions Is there a supported public API for an iOS app to appear as a share target for arbitrary image/PDF NSItemProvider payloads and then directly open the containing app? If apps such as ChatGPT or Claude appear to switch directly into the main app from the share sheet, is that behavior achievable using public APIs available to third-party developers? If directly opening the containing app is not supported, what is the recommended architecture when the import/upload depends on authenticated app state? Is Apple’s recommended design that the Share Extension itself must perform the full import/upload operation, even when that operation depends on auth validation or token refresh? Is there a supported handoff mechanism where the Share Extension can persist the file in an app group container and then ask the system to open the containing app to continue the flow? Are App Intents intended to support this kind of share-sheet attachment import flow, either currently or in a future iOS version? Reproduction Steps We created a focused sample project to reproduce the issue. Build and run the app on a physical iPhone. Leave the app installed. Capture a screenshot. Tap the screenshot thumbnail. Tap the Share button. Choose the app’s Share Extension from the share sheet. Observe that the Share Extension receives the image payload. Attempt to open the containing app from the extension. Expected Result The Share Extension receives the shared image or PDF, stores it in an app group container, and the containing app foregrounds. The containing app then validates the user’s authenticated session, refreshes tokens if needed, and performs the import/upload. Actual Result The Share Extension receives the image payload and logs the provider type identifiers, but the containing app does not reliably foreground. NSExtensionContext.open does not provide the desired transition, and responder-chain URL-opening workarounds do not appear to be supported or reliable. Minimal Question For image/PDF imports from the iOS share sheet, where upload/import requires authenticated app state, what is the supported implementation? Is it expected to be: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension performs auth-dependent upload/import itself or is there a supported way to implement: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension stores the file in app group container → Share Extension opens or hands off to containing app → Main app performs auth validation and upload/import Any guidance on the supported architecture would be appreciated. Thank you.
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FSKit module mount fails with permission error on physical disks
I'm trying to make an FSKit module for NTFS read-write filesystem and at the stage where everything is more or less working fine as long as I mount the volume via mount -F and that volume is a RAM disk. However, since the default NTFS read-only driver is already present in macOS, this introduces an additional challenge. Judging by the DiskArbitration sources, it looks like all FSKit modules are allowed to probe anything only after all kext modules. So, in this situation, any third-party NTFS FSKit module is effectively blocked from using DiskArbitration mechanisms at all because it's always masked during the probing by the system's read-only kext. This leaves mount -F as the only means to mount the NTFS volume via FSKit. However, even that doesn't work for volumes on real (non-RAM) disks due to permission issues. The logs in Console.app hint that the FSKit extension is running; however, it looks like the fskitd itself doesn't have permissions to access real disks if it's initiated from the mount utility? default 16:42:41.939498+0200 fskitd New module list <private> default 16:42:41.939531+0200 fskitd Old modules (null) default 16:42:41.939578+0200 fskitd Added 2 identifiers: <private> default 16:42:41.939651+0200 fskitd [0x7fc58020bf00] activating connection: mach=true listener=true peer=false name=com.apple.filesystems.fskitd debug 16:42:41.939768+0200 fskitd main:RunLoopRun debug 16:42:41.939811+0200 fskitd -[liveFilesMountServiceDelegate listener:shouldAcceptNewConnection:]: start default 16:42:41.939870+0200 fskitd Incomming connection, entitled 0 debug 16:42:41.940021+0200 fskitd -[liveFilesMountServiceDelegate listener:shouldAcceptNewConnection:]: accepting connection default 16:42:41.940048+0200 fskitd [0x7fc580006120] activating connection: mach=false listener=false peer=true name=com.apple.filesystems.fskitd.peer[1816].0x7fc580006120 default 16:42:41.940325+0200 fskitd Hello FSClient! entitlement no default 16:42:41.940977+0200 fskitd About to get current agent for 503 default 16:42:41.941104+0200 fskitd [0x7fc580015480] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.fskit.fskit_agent info 16:42:41.941227+0200 fskitd About to call to fskit_agent debug 16:42:42.004630+0200 fskitd -[fskitdAgentManager currentExtensionForShortName:auditToken:replyHandler:]_block_invoke: Found extension for fsShortName (<private>) info 16:42:42.005409+0200 fskitd Probe starting on <private> debug 16:42:42.005480+0200 fskitd -[FSResourceManager getResourceState:]:not_found:<private> debug 16:42:42.005528+0200 fskitd -[FSResourceManager addTaskUUID:resource:]:<private>: Adding task (<private>) debug 16:42:42.005583+0200 fskitd applyResource starting with resource <private> kind 1 default 16:42:42.005609+0200 fskitd About to get current agent for 503 info 16:42:42.005629+0200 fskitd About to call to fskit_agent debug 16:42:42.006700+0200 fskitd -[fskitdXPCServer getExtensionModuleFromID:forToken:]_block_invoke: Found extension <private>, attrs <private> default 16:42:42.006829+0200 fskitd About to get current agent for 503 info 16:42:42.006858+0200 fskitd About to call to fskit_agent, bundle ID <private>, instanceUUID <private> default 16:42:42.070923+0200 fskitd About to grab assertion on pid 1820 default 16:42:42.071058+0200 fskitd Initializing connection default 16:42:42.071141+0200 fskitd Removing all cached process handles default 16:42:42.071185+0200 fskitd Sending handshake request attempt #1 to server default 16:42:42.071223+0200 fskitd Creating connection to com.apple.runningboard info 16:42:42.071224+0200 fskitd Acquiring assertion: <RBSAssertionDescriptor| "com.apple.extension.session" ID:(null) target:1820> default 16:42:42.071258+0200 fskitd [0x7fc58001cdc0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.runningboard default 16:42:42.075617+0200 fskitd Handshake succeeded default 16:42:42.075660+0200 fskitd Identity resolved as osservice<com.apple.filesystems.fskitd> debug 16:42:42.076337+0200 fskitd Adding assertion 183-1817-1669 to dictionary debug 16:42:42.076385+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]:bsdName:<private> default 16:42:42.076457+0200 fskitd [0x7fc5801092e0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.fskit.fskit_helper default 16:42:42.077706+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]_block_invoke: Open device returned error Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 info 16:42:42.077760+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]: failed to open device <private>, Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 default 16:42:42.077805+0200 fskitd [0x7fc5801092e0] invalidated because the current process cancelled the connection by calling xpc_connection_cancel() debug 16:42:42.077830+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]:end info 16:42:42.078459+0200 fskitd openWith returned err Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 dev (null) error 16:42:42.078501+0200 fskitd -[fskitdXPCServer getRealResource:auditToken:reply:]: Unable to convert proxy FSBlockDeviceResource into open resource error 16:42:42.078538+0200 fskitd -[fskitdXPCServer applyResource:targetBundle:instanceID:initiatorAuditToken:authorizingAuditToken:isProbe:usingBlock:]: Can't get the real resource of <private> default 16:42:42.105443+0200 fskitd [0x7fc580006120] invalidated because the client process (pid 1816) either cancelled the connection or exited The mount utility call I use is the same for RAM and real disks with the only difference being the device argument and this permission error is only relevant for real disks case. So, the proper solution (using DiskArbitration) seems to be blocked architecturally in this use case due to FSKit modules being relegated to the fallback role. Is this subject to change in the future? The remaining workaround with using the mount directly doesn't work for unclear reasons. Is that permission error a bug? Or am I missing something?
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Supported public API to open containing iOS app from Share Extension for image/PDF share sheet imports
Here’s a polished Apple Developer Forums post you can use. I removed personal identifiers such as email, Person ID, Team ID, and DTS Case ID because the forums are public. The post is based on your DTS request and Apple’s response directing you to ask in the Developer Forums.  ⸻ Title Supported public API to open containing iOS app from Share Extension for image/PDF share sheet imports Tags iOS Share Extension UIKit App Intents Uniform Type Identifiers Post Body Hello Apple Developer Forums, We are building an iOS app that needs to receive images and PDFs shared from the system share sheet. The sources include Screenshots, Photos, Files, and third-party apps. The desired user experience is similar to apps such as ChatGPT or Claude: when the user taps our app in the share sheet, the main containing app opens and starts importing or uploading the shared image or PDF. We are trying to understand the supported public API for this behavior. What we have tried CFBundleDocumentTypes We added document type support for: public.image public.png public.jpeg public.heic public.heif com.adobe.pdf This works for some document-open flows, such as opening files from Files or Photos in certain cases. However, it does not make the app appear reliably as a share target from Screenshot Share or from some third-party app share sheets. App Intents We tried using App Intents with IntentFile and: static var openAppWhenRun: Bool = true However, this does not seem to create a general-purpose share-sheet receiver for arbitrary image or PDF NSItemProvider payloads. Share Extension We also implemented a Share Extension that: Receives the shared NSItemProvider. Stores the image or PDF in an app group container. Attempts to open the containing app. However: NSExtensionContext.open(_:completionHandler:) does not appear to foreground the containing app from a Share Extension in the way we need. We also tested responder-chain openURL: trampoline approaches, but those do not work reliably and appear to be unsupported as a public API contract. Questions Is there a supported public API for an iOS app to appear as a share target for arbitrary image/PDF NSItemProvider payloads and then directly open the containing app? If apps such as ChatGPT or Claude appear to switch directly into the main app from the share sheet, is that behavior achievable using public APIs available to third-party developers? If directly opening the containing app is not supported, is the recommended design to perform all upload/import work inside the Share Extension itself? Are App Intents intended to support this kind of share-sheet attachment import flow, either currently or in a future iOS version? Reproduction Steps We created a focused sample project to reproduce the issue. Build and run the app on a physical iPhone. Leave the app installed. Capture a screenshot. Tap the screenshot thumbnail. Tap the Share button. Choose the app’s Share Extension from the share sheet. Observe that the Share Extension receives the image payload. Attempt to open the containing app from the extension. Expected Result The containing app should foreground and receive a URL or other handoff signal indicating that a shared file is available for import. Actual Result The Share Extension receives the image payload and logs the provider type identifiers, but the containing app does not reliably foreground. NSExtensionContext.open does not provide the desired transition, and responder-chain URL-opening workarounds do not appear to be supported or reliable. Minimal Question For image/PDF imports from the iOS share sheet, should the supported implementation be: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension performs the upload/import itself rather than: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension opens containing app → Main app performs upload/import Any guidance on the supported architecture would be appreciated. Thank you.
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Reclaiming cached data from an `enumerateDirectory` call
If I'm in an enumerateDirectory call, I can very quickly fill in the fileID, parentID, and (maybe) the type attributes based on the directory entry I have loaded. That is, I can quickly fill in anything that is contained in the dirent structure in dirent.h, plus the parentID. However, if any other attributes are requested (say, flags), or if the file system doesn't store the filetype in the directory entry, then I need to do additional I/O and load an inode. If I have to load an inode, I might keep a reference to it and assume that I can clean it up later whenever there is a matching call to reclaimItem. But in the enumerateDirectory call, I never provide an FSItem to the system! By observation, I see that normally, a call to enumerateDirectory of this nature is followed up by a lookupItem call for every single fetched item, and then assumedly the system can later reclaim it if need be. At least, I tried various ways of listing directories, and each way I tried showed this behavior. If that's the case, then I can rely on a later reclaimItem call telling me when to clean up this cached data from memory. Is this guaranteed, however? I don't see a mention of this in the documentation, so I'm not sure if I can rely on this. Or, do I need to handle a case where, if I do additional I/O after enumerateDirectory, I might need to figure out when cached data should be cleaned up to avoid a "leak?" (Using the term "leak" loosely here, since in theory looking up the file later would make it reclaimable, but perhaps that might not happen.)
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How to delete iOS simulator runtimes?
There are multiple iOS simulator runtimes located at /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_iOSSimulatorRuntime which I don't need. I tried the following approaches to delete them but not working. Xcode > Settings > Components > Delete (It can delete some but not all of them) xcrun simctl runtime list (It doesn't show the old runtimes) sudo rm (Operation not permitted) sudo rm -rf cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset Password: rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/AssetData/096-69246-684.dmg: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/AssetData: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/Info.plist: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/version.plist: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset: Operation not permitted I have two questions: Why "xcrun simctl runtime list" is unable to list some old runtimes? How to delete them?
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What is the recommended way to count files recursively in a specific folder
Given a directory path (or NSURL) I need to get the total number of files/documents in that directory - recursively - as fast and light as possible. I don't need to list the files, and not filter them. All the APIs I found so far (NSFileManger, NSURL, NSDirectoryEnumerator) collect too much information, and those who are recursive - are aggregating the whole hierarchy before returning. If applied to large directory - this both implies a high CPU peak and slow action, and a huge memory impact - even if transient. My question: What API is best to use to accomplish this count, must I scan recursively the hierarchy? Is there a "lower level" API I could use that is below NSFileManager that provides better performance? One time in the middle-ages, I used old MacOS 8 (before MacOS X) file-system APIs that were immensely fast and allowed doing this without aggregating anything. I write my code in Objective-C, using latest Xcode and MacOS and of course ARC.
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1.3k
1w
Are read-only filesystems currently supported by FSKit?
I'm writing a read-only filesystem extension. I see that the documentation for loadResource(resource:options:replyHandler:) claims that the --rdonly option is supported, which suggests that this should be possible. However, I have never seen this option provided to my filesystem extension, even if I return usableButLimited as a probe result (where it doesn't mount at all - FB19241327) or pass the -r or -o rdonly options to the mount(8) command. Instead I see those options on the volume's activate call. But other than saving that "readonly" state (which, in my case, is always the case) and then throwing on all write-related calls I'm not sure how to actually mark the filesystem as "read-only." Without such an indicator, the user is still offered the option to do things like trash items in Finder (although of course those operations do not succeed since I throw an EROFS error in the relevant calls). It also seems like the FSKit extensions that come with the system handle read-only strangely as well. For example, for a FAT32 filesystem, if I mount it like mount -r -F -t msdos /dev/disk15s1 /tmp/mnt Then it acts... weirdly. For example, Finder doesn't know that the volume is read-only, and lets me do some operations like making new folders, although they never actually get written to disk. Writing may or may not lead to errors and/or the change just disappearing immediately (or later), which is pretty much what I'm seeing in my own filesystem extension. If I remove the -F option (thus using the kernel extension version of msdos), this doesn't happen. Are read-only filesystems currently supported by FSKit? The fact that extensions like Apple's own msdos also seem to act weirdly makes me think this is just a current FSKit limitation, although maybe I'm missing something. It's not necessarily a hard blocker given that I can prevent writes from happening in my FSKit module code (or, in my case, just not implement such features at all), but it does make for a strange experience. (I reported this as FB21068845, although I'm mostly asking here because I'm not 100% sure this is not just me missing something.)
22
0
1k
1w
Sandboxed app loses iCloud Drive access mid-session on macOS 26 — kernel refuses sandbox extension, FP client rejected (NSFileProviderErrorDomain -2001)
Starting somewhere around macOS 26.3, my sandboxed file manager spontaneously loses access to ~/Library/Mobile Documents mid-session. Setup: at launch, the user grants access to '/', '/Users', or '~' via NSOpenPanel; I store a security-scoped bookmark and call startAccessingSecurityScopedResource(). This works fine - including iCloud Drive - until some point mid-session. When it breaks, two things happen simultaneously: Enumeration fails: NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=257 (NSFileReadNoPermissionError)< NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 (EPERM) Console shows the kernel refusing extension issuance: couldn't issue sandbox extension com.apple.app-sandbox.read for '/Users//Library/Mobile Documents': Operation not permitted And probing NSFileProviderManager confirms the process has been rejected system-wide: NSFileProviderManager.getDomainsWithCompletionHandler > NSFileProviderErrorDomain Code=-2001 "The application cannot be used right now." (underlying Code=-2014) What makes this specific to FP-backed paths: regular paths under the same '/' bookmark (~/Library/Application Support, etc.) stay accessible and recover normally with a fresh startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() call. Only ~/Library/Mobile Documents and its subtree fail - the entire tree, including the parent directory itself. Relaunch always restores access. What I've tried and ruled out: Re-resolving the bookmark + startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() - returns stale=false, granted=true but access is not restored; the kernel still refuses extension issuance for FP-traversing paths. NSFileCoordinator coordinated read - doesn't help; the coordinator depends on the same sandbox extension the kernel is refusing. Instantiating NSFileProviderManager(for: domain) per domain - fails with -2001 for every domain, confirming the rejection is process-wide, not path- or domain-specific. My working theory: when a FileProvider daemon (bird/cloudd/fileproviderd) restarts mid-session, the process's FP-client XPC registration is invalidated, and the kernel subsequently refuses to issue sandbox extensions for any path served by FP - even with a valid bookmark. The process seems to have no API path to re-register its FP-client identity without relaunching. Current workaround: I detect the -2001 response and prompt the user to relaunch, then do a programmatic self-relaunch if they confirm (which is obviously horribly intrusive). Questions: Is there an API that lets a sandboxed consumer app reconnect its FP-client identity mid-session, short of relaunching? Is there an entitlement or capability that would make the kernel's extension issuance resilient to FP daemon restarts? Has anyone else hit this on 26.x and found a workaround? Filed as FB22547671.
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127
1w
File Provider: case-insensitive collision check prevents mounting case-sensitive remote filesystems correctly
When a File Provider extension (NSFileProviderReplicatedExtension) mounts a Linux server via SFTP, remote directories containing files that differ only in case (e.g., "README" and "readme") are not represented correctly. The framework silently renames one file locally via the before-bounce mechanism, even though the extension reports both items with distinct identifiers and correct filenames. NSFileProviderActions.h states: "Collision checks should be case insensitive even if the filesystem or file provider might allow two coexisting filenames differing only by their case." This check runs in the framework before writing to disk. Placing the domain on a case-sensitive APFS volume via NSFileProviderDomain(displayName:userInfo:volumeURL:) does not help — the volume passes eligibility but the collision check still applies. This breaks any File Provider extension that mounts case-sensitive filesystems where case-variant filenames are common (especially git repositories). Is there any way to opt out of the case-insensitive collision check per domain? A supportsCaseSensitiveNames property on NSFileProviderDomain would solve this.
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177
2w
Project xcodeproj file can no longer by iCloud Sync
Following an unexpected error message while working in Xcode, the project file xcodeproj is no longer synced in iCloud Drive. The Finder shows a cloud icon with a ! and an error message : (NSFileProviderErrorDomain error -2005.) If the local file is zipped, and unzipped elsewhere on iCloud Drive, then the unzipped file can still not be iCloud Synced. Restoring the file from a Time Machine archive does not solve the issue. Apple Care Support finds that iCloud Drive is working fine except for this xcodeproj file and says the issue is Xcode related.
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248
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Clarification on Disk Write Limits (bug_type 145) and Cross-Volume Write Amplification
Hello Apple Developer Support and Community, I am a senior software engineer investigating a Disk Writes Resource Violation (bug_type 145) for a photo-management application (BeePhotos v2.3.0). We observed a violation where the app dirtied approximately 1GB of file-backed memory in just 48 seconds, triggering a resource report. [Core Diagnostic Data] The following data is extracted from the .crash report: Event: disk writes Action taken: none Writes caused: 1073.96 MB over 48.28s (Average: 22.24 MB/second) System Limit: 1073.74 MB over 86,400 seconds (Daily limit) Device: iPhone 15 Pro (iPhone16,2) OS Version: iOS 26.4 (Build 23E244) Free Space: 3852.25 MB (Approx. 3.8 GB) [Implementation Details] Our application performs the following sequence for a 1GB video download: Download: Uses NSURLSessionDownloadTask to download the file to the system-provided location URL (in the /tmp or com.apple.nsurlsessiond directory). Move: In didFinishDownloadingToURL, we move the file to the App’s sandbox Library/Caches directory using FileManager.default.moveItem(at:to:). Save: We then add the file to the Photo Library via PHAssetCreationRequest.addResource(with:fileURL:options:) using the local URL in Library/Caches. [Technical Questions] I suspect the 1GB download is being "amplified" into ~3GB of total physical writes, and I would like to confirm the following: Cross-Volume Move: Does moving a file from the nsurlsessiond managed temporary directory to the App’s sandbox Library/Caches constitute a Cross-Volume Move on APFS? If so, does this effectively double the write count (1GB download + 1GB copy-on-move)? PHPhotoLibrary Ingestion: When using PHAssetCreationRequest, does the system perform another 1:1 data copy of the source file into the assets database? Would this result in a 3rd GB of writing? Low Disk Space Impact: Given the device only had 3.85 GB free, does the system’s "low disk space" state (near the 150MB threshold) increase the overhead for metadata updates or physical write amplification that counts towards this limit? Best Practices: To stay within the daily 1GB budget for high-resolution media, is it recommended to call PHAssetCreationRequest directly using the location URL from didFinishDownloadingToURL to avoid intermediary copies? Are there any permission or lifecycle risks with this approach? Any insights from the Apple engineering team or the community on how to minimize the write footprint during high-speed ingestion would be highly appreciated. Best regards
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126
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Tahoe 26.4 breaks custom paths with NetFSMountURLSync?
Just wondering if anyone ran into this issue. I use NetFSMountURLSync for my application with which I allow the user to use a custom path as a mount point (instead of "/Volumes"). This has worked just fine for at least a decade now, but ... since the Tahoe 26.4 "update" mounting to a custom path only generates errors. Note: Mounting to "/Volumes" works correctly (mountpoint = NIL). Since I'm unaware of any changes; is this a bug introduced by Tahoe 26.4, or should I be using a different function to mount a network share?
6
0
473
Apr ’26
System-wide deadlock in removexattr from revisiond / APFS
System-wide deadlock in removexattr from revisiond / APFS We're experiencing a deadlock on certains systems when our software is installed, which is causing side effects in our process (and likely others) such as blocked queues and increased memory usage. According to the spindump, revisiond appears to be holding an exclusive lock within the kernel. Process: revisiond [426] UUID: 5E9B9E04-984B-31AD-A4FF-A1A90B7D53A1 Path: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GenerationalStorage.framework/Versions/A/Support/revisiond Codesigning ID: com.apple.revisiond Shared Cache: 25AE5A2A-FE2A-3998-8D4E-F3C5C6E6CEB6 slid base address 0x189834000, slide 0x9834000 (System Primary) Architecture: arm64e Parent: launchd [1] UID: 0 Sudden Term: Tracked Memory Limit: 50MB Jetsam Priority: 40 Footprint: 6225 KB Time Since Fork: 1740319s Num samples: 940 (1-940) Num threads: 5 Note: 1 idle work queue thread omitted [...] Thread 0xc0616d 940 samples (1-940) priority 46 (base 4) last ran 241692.754s ago 940 start_wqthread + 8 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 7068) [0x189d0ab9c] 940 _pthread_wqthread + 292 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 11852) [0x189d0be4c] 940 _dispatch_workloop_worker_thread + 692 (libdispatch.dylib + 85356) [0x189b65d6c] 940 _dispatch_root_queue_drain_deferred_wlh + 292 (libdispatch.dylib + 87156) [0x189b66474] 940 _dispatch_lane_invoke + 440 (libdispatch.dylib + 45048) [0x189b5bff8] 940 _dispatch_lane_serial_drain + 944 (libdispatch.dylib + 42420) [0x189b5b5b4] 940 _dispatch_client_callout + 16 (libdispatch.dylib + 113364) [0x189b6cad4] 940 _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32 (libdispatch.dylib + 7004) [0x189b52b5c] 940 ??? (revisiond + 168768) [0x10494d340] 940 ??? (revisiond + 165940) [0x10494c834] 940 ??? (revisiond + 40264) [0x10492dd48] 940 ??? (revisiond + 56680) [0x104931d68] 940 <patched truncated backtrace> 940 removexattr + 8 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 23768) [0x189cd1cd8] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 15240) [0xfffffe000886fb88] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 1886348) [0xfffffe0008a3888c] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 7730436) [0xfffffe0008fcb504] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 2759592) [0xfffffe0008b0dba8] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 2808244) [0xfffffe0008b199b4] *940 apfs_vnop_removexattr + 1044 (apfs + 474512) [0xfffffe000be8d4d0] *940 decmpfs_cnode_set_vnode_state + 80 (kernel.release.t6000 + 2945816) [0xfffffe0008b3b318] *940 IORWLockWrite + 184 (kernel.release.t6000 + 496184) [0xfffffe00088e5238] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 494624) [0xfffffe00088e4c20] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 619452) [0xfffffe00089033bc] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 624472) [0xfffffe0008904758] The bulk of the other processes are waiting for that lock. (suspended, blocked by krwlock for reading owned by revisiond [426] thread 0xc0616d) (blocked by krwlock for writing owned by revisiond [426] thread 0xc0616d) Around the time of the event, these messages were logged by revision: 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781673-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f364 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] CSCopyChunkIDsForToken failed for 41639 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781716-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f365 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] updateEntry for new entry <private> failed 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781738-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f366 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] no entry for '<private>' 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781754-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f367 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] failed assembleInfoForOffset for fsid 16777234 fileid 359684022 offset 0 size 14334 (path <private>) Our agent uses Endpoint Security Framework to monitor events, and provide anti-tamper functionality for installed components and processes. While several EndpointSecurity calls appear in the spindump stack traces, we don't have any evidence that any calls from revisiond were blocked. What we'd really like to to understand what that lock is (appears to be decompressing an object on an APFS volume), what revisiond and APFS are doing with it, and what might cause it to deadlock. Of note, one of our processes is also waiting on that lock, one thread for reading and the other for writing. This issue affects machines running several macOS versions (15.x, 26.x). The machine in the examples is running macOS 26.3 (25D125)
20
0
716
Apr ’26
App Group container being recreated on app update, causing complete data loss
I'm experiencing an issue where the App Group shared container appears to be recreated (with a new creation date) during an app update, resulting in complete loss of locally stored data. Background My app uses UserDefaults, Realm, Core Data, and CloudKit, with all local data stored in the App Group container (FileManager.containerURL(forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:)). The app has been available since 2016 and has a stable user base. Starting last year, I began receiving occasional reports from users saying all their data in the app had disappeared. To investigate, I added diagnostic logging that detects when an existing user's data appears to have been reset — specifically by checking the App Group container's file system creation date, and the existence and values of expected files. What the diagnostics revealed When the issue occurs, I observe the following: The App Group container has a recent creation date, far newer than the user's first launch date The Core Data store file's creation date is also immediately after the App Group container's recreation date I write the same values to both standard UserDefaults and the App Group version (UserDefaults(suiteName:)). Only the App Group version is reset — the standard side retains historical data The standard side still holds firstLaunchDate, initialVersion, and launchCount, confirming this is not a fresh install Here is a sample diagnostic log from an affected user: appGroupContainerCreationDate: 2026-03-30T18:44:10Z firstLaunchDate: 2025/01/05 4:00 initialVersion: 10.8.0 currentAppVersion: 10.14.14 previousVersion: 10.10.0 launchCount: 44 availableStorageMB: 46646 The container creation date (2026-03-30) is clearly inconsistent with the user's first launch date (2025-01-05) and launch count (44). The container creation date is obtained with the following code: let appGroupURL = FileManager.default.containerURL( forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier: "group.xxx.xxx" )! let attributes = try? FileManager.default.attributesOfItem(atPath: appGroupURL.path) let containerCreationDate = attributes?[.creationDate] as? Date Scale and pattern Reports began increasing in late November last year Over 85% of affected cases are on iOS 26 Most affected devices have plenty of available storage (46GB+ in the example above) This is likely occurring during a normal app update (not a fresh install or device restore) Ruled-out hypotheses Not a fresh install — firstLaunchDate, initialVersion, and launchCount are preserved in standard UserDefaults Not a storage issue — affected users typically have tens of GBs of free space, making it unlikely that iOS purged the data due to low storage Not an app-side code change — the App Group identifier and entitlements have not been changed Not triggered by silent notifications, background tasks, or widget activity — these processes do write to the App Group container, but the recreation does not appear to occur immediately after any of these operations Questions Has anyone else observed App Group containers being recreated (new creation date, empty contents) during a standard app update? Is there a known iOS behavior or bug that could cause this, particularly on iOS 26? Are there any recommended mitigations? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. This is a data loss issue affecting real users, and I'd like to understand whether this is an iOS-level problem or something I should be handling differently on my end.
1
0
275
Apr ’26
My macOS app is unable to read a Managed Preferences plist unless the App Sandbox is disabled. Is there any solution to read the MDM plist file while the sandbox is still enabled?
I created two sample apps — one sandboxed and one non‑sandboxed. I tested reading Managed Preferences using bash commands, CFPreferencesCopyValue for a domain, and defaults read. Everything works correctly only when the sandbox is disabled in the entitlements. When the sandbox is enabled, I’m unable to read values from /Library/Managed Preferences/. Is there any supported way for a sandboxed macOS app to read an MDM-delivered preference plist under /Library/Managed Preferences/? Any guidance on the correct and Apple‑supported method would be appreciated.
3
0
266
Mar ’26
copyfile Sometimes Fails to copy .DS_Store when Copying a Folder But Does Not Report Usable Error
Testing copyfile on a folder on an external volume (which takes a bit a of time) I'm running into an issue where copyfile gets to the end of the operation and then just fails. In the callback I can see that the failure occurs on a .DS_Store file inside the folder. So for a .DS_Store it is simple enough for me to just ignore the error and return COPYFILE_SKIP but the somewhat more concerning issue here is that the true error reason is seemingly not reported? In the callback if I read errno it is 0. When copyfile returns it returns -1 after I return COPYFILE_QUIT (and errno is 0) so I don't know what the error is or the appropriate way to handle it. For .DS_Store just skipping seems reasonable but when copying a folder it may be appropriate to get the true failure reason. But checking the last path component of source path seems like a hack way to handle errors. If a file in the copying folder with important user data I can't just silently skip it - it isn't clear to me how I should properly proceed in a situation where I can't get the actual reason for the failure.
6
0
324
Mar ’26
filecopy fails with errno 34 "Result too large" when copying from NAS
A user of my app reported that when my app copies files from a QNAP NAS to a folder on their Mac, they get the error "Result too large". When copying the same files from the Desktop, it works. I asked them to reproduce the issue with the sample code below and they confirmed that it reproduces. They contacted QNAP for support who in turn contacted me saying that they are not sure they can do anything about it, and asking if Apple can help. Both the app user and QNAP are willing to help, but at this point I'm also unsure how to proceed. Can someone at Apple say anything about this? Is this something QNAP should solve, or is this a bug in macOS? P.S.: I've had users in the past who reported the same issue with other brands, mostly Synology. import Cocoa @main class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate { func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) { let openPanel = NSOpenPanel() openPanel.canChooseDirectories = true openPanel.runModal() let source = openPanel.urls[0] openPanel.canChooseFiles = false openPanel.runModal() let destination = openPanel.urls[0] do { try copyFile(from: source, to: destination.appendingPathComponent(source.lastPathComponent, isDirectory: false)) } catch { NSAlert(error: error).runModal() } NSApp.terminate(nil) } private func copyFile(from source: URL, to destination: URL) throws { if try source.resourceValues(forKeys: [.isDirectoryKey]).isDirectory == true { try FileManager.default.createDirectory(at: destination, withIntermediateDirectories: false) for source in try FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(at: source, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil) { try copyFile(from: source, to: destination.appendingPathComponent(source.lastPathComponent, isDirectory: false)) } } else { try copyRegularFile(from: source, to: destination) } } private func copyRegularFile(from source: URL, to destination: URL) throws { let state = copyfile_state_alloc() defer { copyfile_state_free(state) } var bsize = UInt32(16_777_216) if copyfile_state_set(state, UInt32(COPYFILE_STATE_BSIZE), &bsize) != 0 { throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno)) } else if copyfile_state_set(state, UInt32(COPYFILE_STATE_STATUS_CB), unsafeBitCast(copyfileCallback, to: UnsafeRawPointer.self)) != 0 { throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno)) } else if copyfile(source.path, destination.path, state, copyfile_flags_t(COPYFILE_DATA | COPYFILE_SECURITY | COPYFILE_NOFOLLOW | COPYFILE_EXCL | COPYFILE_XATTR)) != 0 { throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno)) } } private let copyfileCallback: copyfile_callback_t = { what, stage, state, src, dst, ctx in if what == COPYFILE_COPY_DATA { if stage == COPYFILE_ERR { return COPYFILE_QUIT } } return COPYFILE_CONTINUE } }
21
0
596
Mar ’26
How does Numbers.app detect that a document was moved to Recently Deleted, and can third-party apps implement the same behavior?
The Numbers.app reopens the last edited document when the app launches. If the document was moved to another folder in the Files.app while the app was not running, Numbers.app correctly tracks the file and reopens it. However, if the document was deleted in the Files.app and moved to Recently Deleted, Numbers.app does not reopen the document when the app launches. Question : How does Numbers.app detect that a document has been moved to Recently Deleted? Can third-party apps implement the same behavior? What I tested : If a file is moved while the app is not running, resolving a bookmark successfully tracks the moved file. Files that are deleted via the Files.app appear in Recently Deleted, but those files are actually moved to the following directories: iCloud Drive /var/mobile/Library/Mobile Documents/.Trash/ On My iPad /var/mobile/Containers/Shared/AppGroup/{UUID}/File Provider Storage/.Trash/ App sandbox Documents directory ([On My iPad]/[Any App]) /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/{UUID}/Documents/.Trash/ When resolving the bookmark after deletion, the bookmark still resolves successfully and returns the new file URL inside the .Trash directory. I tried the following checks on the resolved URL: Checking file existence Checking read/write accessibility Inspecting bookmark resolution results Using APIs related to NSTrashDirectory See https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/813329#813329021 All of these behaved the same as when the file was moved to a normal directory. None of these checks allowed me to detect that the file had been deleted. Additional experiment: I suspected that the app might simply check whether the path contains ".Trash", so I performed the following experiment. If a .numbers file is moved to /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/{UUID}/Documents/.Trash/ then The file appears in Recently Deleted in Files.app Numbers.app does not reopen the document when the app launches However, if the same file is moved to Documents/Trash Documents/.Trashed Documents/Any Folder/.Trash then The file does not appear in Recently Deleted in Files Numbers does reopen the document when launched This suggests that Numbers.app is not simply checking whether the path contains ".Trash".
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Mar ’26
NSPathControl Causing Disk I/O Reading NSURL Resource Values On the Main Thread
Sort of a continuation of - https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/813641 I've made a great effort to get NSURL -getResourceValue:forKey: calls etc off the main thread. Great progress. So now I'm working with a file on a really slow network volume I discovered a little hang and luckily enough I'm attached to the debugger so I paused that thing. I see where I'm at. It is: NSPathControl's setURL:. It goes a little something like this: in realpath$DARWIN_EXTSN () +fileSystemRealPath () +[FSNode(SandboxChecks) canAccessURL:withAuditToken:operation:] () +FSNode(SandboxChecks) canReadFromSandboxWithAuditToken:] () LaunchServices::URLPropertyProvider::prepareLocalizedNameValue () LaunchServices::URLPropertyProvider::prepareValues () prepareValuesForBitmap () FSURLCopyResourcePropertiesForKeysInternal () CFURLCopyResourcePropertiesForKeys () -[NSURL resourceValuesForKeys:error:] () in function signature specialization <Arg[1] = Dead> of Foundation._NSFileManagerBridge.displayName(atPath: Swift.String) -> Swift.String () in displayName () -[NSPathCell _autoUpdateCellContents] () -[NSPathCell setURL:] () Could maybe, NSPathControl get the display name etc. asynchronously? and maybe just stick raw path components in as a placeholder while it is reading async? Or something like that? If I can preload the resource keys it needs I would but once the NSURL asks on the main main thread I think it will just dump the cache out, per the run loop rules.
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Mar ’26
On File System Permissions
Modern versions of macOS use a file system permission model that’s far more complex than the traditional BSD rwx model, and this post is my attempt at explaining that model. If you have a question about this, post it here on DevForums. Put your thread in the App & System Services > Core OS topic area and tag it with Files and Storage. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" On File System Permissions Modern versions of macOS have five different file system permission mechanisms: Traditional BSD permissions Access control lists (ACLs) App Sandbox Mandatory access control (MAC) Endpoint Security (ES) The first two were introduced a long time ago and rarely trip folks up. The second two are newer, more complex, and specific to macOS, and thus are the source of some confusion. Finally, Endpoint Security allows third-party developers to deny file system operations based on their own criteria. This post offers explanations and advice about all of these mechanisms. Error Codes App Sandbox and the mandatory access control system are both implemented using macOS’s sandboxing infrastructure. When a file system operation fails, check the error to see whether it was blocked by this sandboxing infrastructure. If an operation was blocked by BSD permissions or ACLs, it fails with EACCES (Permission denied, 13). If it was blocked by something else, it’ll fail with EPERM (Operation not permitted, 1). If you’re using Foundation’s FileManager, these error are both reported as Foundation errors, for example, the NSFileReadNoPermissionError error. To recover the underlying error, get the NSUnderlyingErrorKey property from the info dictionary. App Sandbox File system access within the App Sandbox is controlled by two factors. The first is the entitlements on the main executable. There are three relevant groups of entitlements: The com.apple.security.app-sandbox entitlement enables the App Sandbox. This denies access to all file system locations except those on a built-in allowlist (things like /System) or within the app’s containers. The various “standard location” entitlements extend the sandbox to include their corresponding locations. The various “file access temporary exceptions” entitlements extend the sandbox to include the items listed in the entitlement. Collectively this is known as your static sandbox. The second factor is dynamic sandbox extensions. The system issues these extensions to your sandbox based on user behaviour. For example, if the user selects a file in the open panel, the system issues a sandbox extension to your process so that it can access that file. The type of extension is determined by the main executable’s entitlements: com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only results in an extension that grants read-only access. com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write results in an extension that grants read/write access. Note There’s currently no way to get a dynamic sandbox extension that grants executable access. For all the gory details, see this post. These dynamic sandbox extensions are tied to your process; they go away when your process terminates. To maintain persistent access to an item, use a security-scoped bookmark. See Accessing files from the macOS App Sandbox. To pass access between processes, use an implicit security scoped bookmark, that is, a bookmark that was created without an explicit security scope (no .withSecurityScope flag) and without disabling the implicit security scope (no .withoutImplicitSecurityScope flag)). If you have access to a directory — regardless of whether that’s via an entitlement or a dynamic sandbox extension — then, in general, you have access to all items in the hierarchy rooted at that directory. This does not overrule the MAC protection discussed below. For example, if the user grants you access to ~/Library, that does not give you access to ~/Library/Mail because the latter is protected by MAC. Finally, the discussion above is focused on a new sandbox, the thing you get when you launch a sandboxed app from the Finder. If a sandboxed process starts a child process, that child process inherits its sandbox from its parent. For information on what happens in that case, see the Note box in Enabling App Sandbox Inheritance. IMPORTANT The child process inherits its parent process’s sandbox regardless of whether it has the com.apple.security.inherit entitlement. That entitlement exists primarily to act as a marker for App Review. App Review requires that all main executables have the com.apple.security.app-sandbox entitlement, and that entitlements starts a new sandbox by default. Thus, any helper tool inside your app needs the com.apple.security.inherit entitlement to trigger inheritance. However, if you’re not shipping on the Mac App Store you can leave off both of these entitlement and the helper process will inherit its parent’s sandbox just fine. The same applies if you run a built-in executable, like /bin/sh, as a child process. When the App Sandbox blocks something, it might generates a sandbox violation report. For information on how to view these reports, see Discovering and diagnosing App Sandbox violations. To learn more about the App Sandbox, see the various links in App Sandbox Resources. For information about how to embed a helper tool in a sandboxed app, see Embedding a Command-Line Tool in a Sandboxed App. Mandatory Access Control Mandatory access control (MAC) has been a feature of macOS for many releases, but it’s become a lot more prominent since macOS 10.14. There are many flavours of MAC but the ones you’re most likely to encounter are: Full Disk Access (macOS 10.14 and later) Files and Folders (macOS 10.15 and later) App bundle protection (macOS 13 and later) App container protection (macOS 14 and later) App group container protection (macOS 15 and later) Data Vaults (see below) and other internal techniques used by various macOS subsystems Mandatory access control, as the name suggests, is mandatory; it’s not an opt-in like the App Sandbox. Rather, all processes on the system, including those running as root, as subject to MAC. Data Vaults are not a third-party developer opportunity. See this post if you’re curious. In the Full Disk Access and Files and Folders cases, users grant a program a MAC privilege using System Settings > Privacy & Security. Some MAC privileges are per user (Files and Folders) and some are system wide (Full Disk Access). If you’re not sure, run this simple test: On a Mac with two users, log in as user A and enable the MAC privilege for a program. Now log in as user B. Does the program have the privilege? If a process tries to access an item restricted by MAC, the system may prompt the user to grant it access there and then. For example, if an app tries to access the desktop, you’ll see an alert like this: “AAA” would like to access files in your Desktop folder. [Don’t Allow] [OK] To customise this message, set Files and Folders properties in your Info.plist. This system only displays this alert once. It remembers the user’s initial choice and returns the same result thereafter. This relies on your code having a stable code signing identity. If your code is unsigned, or signed ad hoc (Signed to Run Locally in Xcode parlance), the system can’t tell that version N+1 of your code is the same as version N, and thus you’ll encounter excessive prompts. Note For information about how that works, see TN3127 Inside Code Signing: Requirements. The Files and Folders prompts only show up if the process is running in a GUI login session. If not, the operation is allowed or denied based on existing information. If there’s no existing information, the operation is denied by default. For more information about app and app group container protection, see the links in Trusted Execution Resources. For more information about app groups in general, see App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony On managed systems the site admin can use the com.apple.TCC.configuration-profile-policy payload to assign MAC privileges. For testing purposes you can reset parts of TCC using the tccutil command-line tool. For general information about that tool, see its man page. For a list of TCC service names, see the posts on this thread. Note TCC stands for transparency, consent, and control. It’s the subsystem within macOS that manages most of the privileges visible in System Settings > Privacy & Security. TCC has no API surface, but you see its name in various places, including the above-mentioned configuration profile payload and command-line tool, and the name of its accompanying daemon, tccd. While tccutil is an easy way to do basic TCC testing, the most reliable way to test TCC is in a VM, restoring to a fresh snapshot between each test. If you want to try this out, crib ideas from Testing a Notarised Product. The MAC privilege mechanism is heavily dependent on the concept of responsible code. For example, if an app contains a helper tool and the helper tool triggers a MAC prompt, we want: The app’s name and usage description to appear in the alert. The user’s decision to be recorded for the whole app, not that specific helper tool. That decision to show up in System Settings under the app’s name. For this to work the system must be able to tell that the app is the responsible code for the helper tool. The system has various heuristics to determine this and it works reasonably well in most cases. However, it’s possible to break this link. I haven’t fully research this but my experience is that this most often breaks when the child process does something ‘odd’ to break the link, such as trying to daemonise itself. If you’re building a launchd daemon or agent and you find that it’s not correctly attributed to your app, add the AssociatedBundleIdentifiers property to your launchd property list. See the launchd.plist man page for the details. Scripting MAC presents some serious challenges for scripting because scripts are run by interpreters and the system can’t distinguish file system operations done by the interpreter from those done by the script. For example, if you have a script that needs to manipulate files on your desktop, you wouldn’t want to give the interpreter that privilege because then any script could do that. The easiest solution to this problem is to package your script as a standalone program that MAC can use for its tracking. This may be easy or hard depending on the specific scripting environment. For example, AppleScript makes it easy to export a script as a signed app, but that’s not true for shell scripts. TCC and Main Executables TCC expects its bundled clients — apps, app extensions, and so on — to use a native main executable. That is, it expects the CFBundleExecutable property to be the name of a Mach-O executable. If your product uses a script as its main executable, you’re likely to encounter TCC problems. To resolve these, switch to using a Mach-O executable. For an example of how you might do that, see this post. Endpoint Security Endpoint Security (ES) is a general mechanism for third-party products to enforce custom security policies on the Mac. An ES client asks ES to send it events when specific security-relevant operations occur. These events can be notifications or authorisations. In the case of authorisation events, the ES client must either allow or deny the operation. As you might imagine, the set of security-relevant operations includes file system operations. For example, when you open a file using the open system call, ES delivers the ES_EVENT_TYPE_AUTH_OPEN event to any interested ES clients. If one of those ES client denies the operation, the open system call fails with EPERM. For more information about ES, see the Endpoint Security framework documentation. Revision History 2025-11-04 Added a discussion of Endpoint Security. Made numerous minor editorial changes. 2024-11-08 Added info about app group container protection. Clarified that Data Vaults are just one example of the techniques used internally by macOS. Made other editorial changes. 2023-06-13 Replaced two obsolete links with links to shiny new official documentation: Accessing files from the macOS App Sandbox and Discovering and diagnosing App Sandbox violations. Added a short discussion of app container protection and a link to WWDC 2023 Session 10053 What’s new in privacy. 2023-04-07 Added a link to my post about executable permissions. Fixed a broken link. 2023-02-10 In TCC and Main Executables, added a link to my native trampoline code. Introduced the concept of an implicit security scoped bookmark. Introduced AssociatedBundleIdentifiers. Made other minor editorial changes. 2022-04-26 Added an explanation of the TCC initialism. Added a link to Viewing Sandbox Violation Reports.  Added the TCC and Main Executables section. Made significant editorial changes. 2022-01-10 Added a discussion of the file system hierarchy. 2021-04-26 First posted.
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Nov ’25
Files and Storage Resources
General: Forums subtopic: App & System Services > Core OS Forums tags: Files and Storage, Foundation, FSKit, File Provider, Finder Sync, Disk Arbitration, APFS Foundation > Files and Data Persistence documentation Low-level file system APIs are documented in UNIX manual pages File System Programming Guide archived documentation About Apple File System documentation Apple File System Guide archived documentation File system changes introduced in iOS 17 forums post On File System Permissions forums post Extended Attributes and Zip Archives forums post Unpacking Apple Archives forums post Creating new file systems: FSKit framework documentation Building a passthrough file system sample code File Provider framework documentation Finder Sync framework documentation App Extension Programming Guide > App Extension Types > Finder Sync archived documentation Managing storage: Disk Arbitration framework documentation Disk Arbitration Programming Guide archived documentation Mass Storage Device Driver Programming Guide archived documentation Device File Access Guide for Storage Devices archived documentation BlockStorageDeviceDriverKit framework documentation Volume format references: Apple File System Reference TN1150 HFS Plus Volume Format Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
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2.5k
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Feb ’26
NSFileSandboxingRequestRelatedItemExtension: Failed to issue extension
Hi there, I have an SwiftUI app that opens a user selected audio file (wave). For each audio file an additional file exists containing events that were extracted from the audio file. This additional file has the same filename and uses the extension bcCalls. I load the audio file using FileImporter view modifier and within access the audio file with a security scoped bookmark. That works well. After loading the audio I create a CallsSidecar NSFilePresenter with the url of the audio file. I make the presenter known to the NSFileCoordinator and upon this add it to the FileCoordinator. This fails with NSFileSandboxingRequestRelatedItemExtension: Failed to issue extension for; Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=3 "No such process" My Info.plist contains an entry for the document with NSIsRelatedItemType set to YES I am using this kind of FilePresenter code in various live apps developed some years ago. Now when starting from scratch on a fresh macOS26 system with most current Xcode I do not manage to get it running. Any ideas welcome! Here is the code: struct ContentView: View { @State private var sonaImg: CGImage? @State private var calls: Array<CallMeasurements> = Array() @State private var soundContainer: BatSoundContainer? @State private var importPresented: Bool = false var body: some View { VStack { Image(systemName: "globe") .imageScale(.large) .foregroundStyle(.tint) Text("Hello, world!") if self.sonaImg != nil { Image(self.sonaImg!, scale: 1.0, orientation: .left, label: Text("Sonagram")) } if !(self.calls.isEmpty) { List(calls) {aCall in Text("\(aCall.callNumber)") } } Button("Load sound file") { importPresented.toggle() } } .fileImporter(isPresented: $importPresented, allowedContentTypes: [.audio, UTType(filenameExtension: "raw")!], onCompletion: { result in switch result { case .success(let url): let gotAccess = url.startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() if !gotAccess { return } if let soundContainer = try? BatSoundContainer(with: url) { self.soundContainer = soundContainer self.sonaImg = soundContainer.overviewSonagram(expectedWidth: 800) let callsSidecar = CallsSidecar(withSoundURL: url) let data = callsSidecar.readData() print(data) } url.stopAccessingSecurityScopedResource() case .failure(let error): // handle error print(error) } }) .padding() } } The file presenter according to the WWDC 19 example: class CallsSidecar: NSObject, NSFilePresenter { lazy var presentedItemOperationQueue = OperationQueue.main var primaryPresentedItemURL: URL? var presentedItemURL: URL? init(withSoundURL audioURL: URL) { primaryPresentedItemURL = audioURL presentedItemURL = audioURL.deletingPathExtension().appendingPathExtension("bcCalls") } func readData() -> Data? { var data: Data? var error: NSError? NSFileCoordinator.addFilePresenter(self) let coordinator = NSFileCoordinator.init(filePresenter: self) NSFileCoordinator.addFilePresenter(self) coordinator.coordinate(readingItemAt: presentedItemURL!, options: [], error: &error) { url in data = try! Data.init(contentsOf: url) } return data } } And from Info.plist <key>CFBundleDocumentTypes</key> <array> <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key> <array> <string>bcCalls</string> </array> <key>CFBundleTypeName</key> <string>bcCalls document</string> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>None</string> <key>LSHandlerRank</key> <string>Alternate</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>com.apple.property-list</string> </array> <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key> <false/> <key>NSIsRelatedItemType</key> <true/> </dict> <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeExtensions</key> <array> <string>wav</string> <string>wave</string> </array> <key>CFBundleTypeName</key> <string>Windows wave</string> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>Editor</string> <key>LSHandlerRank</key> <string>Alternate</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>com.microsoft.waveform-audio</string> </array> <key>LSTypeIsPackage</key> <integer>0</integer> <key>NSDocumentClass</key> <string></string> </dict> </array> Note that BatSoundContainer is a custom class for loading audio of various undocumented formats as well as wave, Flac etc. and this is working well displaying a sonogram of the audio. Thx, Volker
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2d
Supported public API to open containing iOS app from Share Extension for image/PDF share sheet imports
Hello Apple Developer Forums, We are building an iOS app that needs to receive images and PDFs shared from the system share sheet. The sources include Screenshots, Photos, Files, and third-party apps. The desired user experience is similar to apps such as ChatGPT or Claude: when the user taps our app in the share sheet, the main containing app opens and starts importing or uploading the shared image or PDF. We are trying to understand the supported public API for this behavior. Why opening the containing app is important For our use case, it is important that the containing app opens during the share flow. The import/upload operation depends on the user’s authenticated session. If the Share Extension attempts to upload the file directly, the auth token available to the extension could be missing, expired, or invalid. We would prefer not to make the Share Extension responsible for authentication-dependent behavior such as: validating the user session refreshing tokens handling expired credentials presenting login or re-authentication UI owning upload retry logic tied to auth state In our architecture, authentication and token refresh are owned by the containing app. The Share Extension should ideally only receive the shared file, persist it in an app group container, and hand off to the main app. The main app would then validate auth state, refresh tokens if needed, and perform the import/upload. So the desired flow is: Share Extension receives image/PDF → Share Extension stores file in app group container → Containing app opens → Containing app validates auth/session state → Containing app imports/uploads the file The alternative flow is problematic for us: Share Extension receives image/PDF → Share Extension attempts upload directly → Upload may fail if auth token is expired or unavailable → Share Extension would need auth/session responsibilities We are trying to avoid having an authentication dependency inside the Share Extension implementation. What we have tried CFBundleDocumentTypes We added document type support for: public.image public.png public.jpeg public.heic public.heif com.adobe.pdf This works for some document-open flows, such as opening files from Files or Photos in certain cases. However, it does not make the app appear reliably as a share target from Screenshot Share or from some third-party app share sheets. App Intents We tried using App Intents with IntentFile and: static var openAppWhenRun: Bool = true However, this does not seem to create a general-purpose share-sheet receiver for arbitrary image or PDF NSItemProvider payloads. Share Extension We also implemented a Share Extension that: Receives the shared NSItemProvider. Stores the image or PDF in an app group container. Attempts to open the containing app. However: NSExtensionContext.open(_:completionHandler:) does not appear to foreground the containing app from a Share Extension in the way we need. We also tested responder-chain openURL: trampoline approaches, but those do not work reliably and appear to be unsupported as a public API contract. Questions Is there a supported public API for an iOS app to appear as a share target for arbitrary image/PDF NSItemProvider payloads and then directly open the containing app? If apps such as ChatGPT or Claude appear to switch directly into the main app from the share sheet, is that behavior achievable using public APIs available to third-party developers? If directly opening the containing app is not supported, what is the recommended architecture when the import/upload depends on authenticated app state? Is Apple’s recommended design that the Share Extension itself must perform the full import/upload operation, even when that operation depends on auth validation or token refresh? Is there a supported handoff mechanism where the Share Extension can persist the file in an app group container and then ask the system to open the containing app to continue the flow? Are App Intents intended to support this kind of share-sheet attachment import flow, either currently or in a future iOS version? Reproduction Steps We created a focused sample project to reproduce the issue. Build and run the app on a physical iPhone. Leave the app installed. Capture a screenshot. Tap the screenshot thumbnail. Tap the Share button. Choose the app’s Share Extension from the share sheet. Observe that the Share Extension receives the image payload. Attempt to open the containing app from the extension. Expected Result The Share Extension receives the shared image or PDF, stores it in an app group container, and the containing app foregrounds. The containing app then validates the user’s authenticated session, refreshes tokens if needed, and performs the import/upload. Actual Result The Share Extension receives the image payload and logs the provider type identifiers, but the containing app does not reliably foreground. NSExtensionContext.open does not provide the desired transition, and responder-chain URL-opening workarounds do not appear to be supported or reliable. Minimal Question For image/PDF imports from the iOS share sheet, where upload/import requires authenticated app state, what is the supported implementation? Is it expected to be: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension performs auth-dependent upload/import itself or is there a supported way to implement: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension stores the file in app group container → Share Extension opens or hands off to containing app → Main app performs auth validation and upload/import Any guidance on the supported architecture would be appreciated. Thank you.
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4d
FSKit module mount fails with permission error on physical disks
I'm trying to make an FSKit module for NTFS read-write filesystem and at the stage where everything is more or less working fine as long as I mount the volume via mount -F and that volume is a RAM disk. However, since the default NTFS read-only driver is already present in macOS, this introduces an additional challenge. Judging by the DiskArbitration sources, it looks like all FSKit modules are allowed to probe anything only after all kext modules. So, in this situation, any third-party NTFS FSKit module is effectively blocked from using DiskArbitration mechanisms at all because it's always masked during the probing by the system's read-only kext. This leaves mount -F as the only means to mount the NTFS volume via FSKit. However, even that doesn't work for volumes on real (non-RAM) disks due to permission issues. The logs in Console.app hint that the FSKit extension is running; however, it looks like the fskitd itself doesn't have permissions to access real disks if it's initiated from the mount utility? default 16:42:41.939498+0200 fskitd New module list <private> default 16:42:41.939531+0200 fskitd Old modules (null) default 16:42:41.939578+0200 fskitd Added 2 identifiers: <private> default 16:42:41.939651+0200 fskitd [0x7fc58020bf00] activating connection: mach=true listener=true peer=false name=com.apple.filesystems.fskitd debug 16:42:41.939768+0200 fskitd main:RunLoopRun debug 16:42:41.939811+0200 fskitd -[liveFilesMountServiceDelegate listener:shouldAcceptNewConnection:]: start default 16:42:41.939870+0200 fskitd Incomming connection, entitled 0 debug 16:42:41.940021+0200 fskitd -[liveFilesMountServiceDelegate listener:shouldAcceptNewConnection:]: accepting connection default 16:42:41.940048+0200 fskitd [0x7fc580006120] activating connection: mach=false listener=false peer=true name=com.apple.filesystems.fskitd.peer[1816].0x7fc580006120 default 16:42:41.940325+0200 fskitd Hello FSClient! entitlement no default 16:42:41.940977+0200 fskitd About to get current agent for 503 default 16:42:41.941104+0200 fskitd [0x7fc580015480] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.fskit.fskit_agent info 16:42:41.941227+0200 fskitd About to call to fskit_agent debug 16:42:42.004630+0200 fskitd -[fskitdAgentManager currentExtensionForShortName:auditToken:replyHandler:]_block_invoke: Found extension for fsShortName (<private>) info 16:42:42.005409+0200 fskitd Probe starting on <private> debug 16:42:42.005480+0200 fskitd -[FSResourceManager getResourceState:]:not_found:<private> debug 16:42:42.005528+0200 fskitd -[FSResourceManager addTaskUUID:resource:]:<private>: Adding task (<private>) debug 16:42:42.005583+0200 fskitd applyResource starting with resource <private> kind 1 default 16:42:42.005609+0200 fskitd About to get current agent for 503 info 16:42:42.005629+0200 fskitd About to call to fskit_agent debug 16:42:42.006700+0200 fskitd -[fskitdXPCServer getExtensionModuleFromID:forToken:]_block_invoke: Found extension <private>, attrs <private> default 16:42:42.006829+0200 fskitd About to get current agent for 503 info 16:42:42.006858+0200 fskitd About to call to fskit_agent, bundle ID <private>, instanceUUID <private> default 16:42:42.070923+0200 fskitd About to grab assertion on pid 1820 default 16:42:42.071058+0200 fskitd Initializing connection default 16:42:42.071141+0200 fskitd Removing all cached process handles default 16:42:42.071185+0200 fskitd Sending handshake request attempt #1 to server default 16:42:42.071223+0200 fskitd Creating connection to com.apple.runningboard info 16:42:42.071224+0200 fskitd Acquiring assertion: <RBSAssertionDescriptor| "com.apple.extension.session" ID:(null) target:1820> default 16:42:42.071258+0200 fskitd [0x7fc58001cdc0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.runningboard default 16:42:42.075617+0200 fskitd Handshake succeeded default 16:42:42.075660+0200 fskitd Identity resolved as osservice<com.apple.filesystems.fskitd> debug 16:42:42.076337+0200 fskitd Adding assertion 183-1817-1669 to dictionary debug 16:42:42.076385+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]:bsdName:<private> default 16:42:42.076457+0200 fskitd [0x7fc5801092e0] activating connection: mach=true listener=false peer=false name=com.apple.fskit.fskit_helper default 16:42:42.077706+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]_block_invoke: Open device returned error Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 info 16:42:42.077760+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]: failed to open device <private>, Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 default 16:42:42.077805+0200 fskitd [0x7fc5801092e0] invalidated because the current process cancelled the connection by calling xpc_connection_cancel() debug 16:42:42.077830+0200 fskitd +[FSBlockDeviceResource(Project) openWithBSDName:writable:auditToken:replyHandler:]:end info 16:42:42.078459+0200 fskitd openWith returned err Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=13 dev (null) error 16:42:42.078501+0200 fskitd -[fskitdXPCServer getRealResource:auditToken:reply:]: Unable to convert proxy FSBlockDeviceResource into open resource error 16:42:42.078538+0200 fskitd -[fskitdXPCServer applyResource:targetBundle:instanceID:initiatorAuditToken:authorizingAuditToken:isProbe:usingBlock:]: Can't get the real resource of <private> default 16:42:42.105443+0200 fskitd [0x7fc580006120] invalidated because the client process (pid 1816) either cancelled the connection or exited The mount utility call I use is the same for RAM and real disks with the only difference being the device argument and this permission error is only relevant for real disks case. So, the proper solution (using DiskArbitration) seems to be blocked architecturally in this use case due to FSKit modules being relegated to the fallback role. Is this subject to change in the future? The remaining workaround with using the mount directly doesn't work for unclear reasons. Is that permission error a bug? Or am I missing something?
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Supported public API to open containing iOS app from Share Extension for image/PDF share sheet imports
Here’s a polished Apple Developer Forums post you can use. I removed personal identifiers such as email, Person ID, Team ID, and DTS Case ID because the forums are public. The post is based on your DTS request and Apple’s response directing you to ask in the Developer Forums.  ⸻ Title Supported public API to open containing iOS app from Share Extension for image/PDF share sheet imports Tags iOS Share Extension UIKit App Intents Uniform Type Identifiers Post Body Hello Apple Developer Forums, We are building an iOS app that needs to receive images and PDFs shared from the system share sheet. The sources include Screenshots, Photos, Files, and third-party apps. The desired user experience is similar to apps such as ChatGPT or Claude: when the user taps our app in the share sheet, the main containing app opens and starts importing or uploading the shared image or PDF. We are trying to understand the supported public API for this behavior. What we have tried CFBundleDocumentTypes We added document type support for: public.image public.png public.jpeg public.heic public.heif com.adobe.pdf This works for some document-open flows, such as opening files from Files or Photos in certain cases. However, it does not make the app appear reliably as a share target from Screenshot Share or from some third-party app share sheets. App Intents We tried using App Intents with IntentFile and: static var openAppWhenRun: Bool = true However, this does not seem to create a general-purpose share-sheet receiver for arbitrary image or PDF NSItemProvider payloads. Share Extension We also implemented a Share Extension that: Receives the shared NSItemProvider. Stores the image or PDF in an app group container. Attempts to open the containing app. However: NSExtensionContext.open(_:completionHandler:) does not appear to foreground the containing app from a Share Extension in the way we need. We also tested responder-chain openURL: trampoline approaches, but those do not work reliably and appear to be unsupported as a public API contract. Questions Is there a supported public API for an iOS app to appear as a share target for arbitrary image/PDF NSItemProvider payloads and then directly open the containing app? If apps such as ChatGPT or Claude appear to switch directly into the main app from the share sheet, is that behavior achievable using public APIs available to third-party developers? If directly opening the containing app is not supported, is the recommended design to perform all upload/import work inside the Share Extension itself? Are App Intents intended to support this kind of share-sheet attachment import flow, either currently or in a future iOS version? Reproduction Steps We created a focused sample project to reproduce the issue. Build and run the app on a physical iPhone. Leave the app installed. Capture a screenshot. Tap the screenshot thumbnail. Tap the Share button. Choose the app’s Share Extension from the share sheet. Observe that the Share Extension receives the image payload. Attempt to open the containing app from the extension. Expected Result The containing app should foreground and receive a URL or other handoff signal indicating that a shared file is available for import. Actual Result The Share Extension receives the image payload and logs the provider type identifiers, but the containing app does not reliably foreground. NSExtensionContext.open does not provide the desired transition, and responder-chain URL-opening workarounds do not appear to be supported or reliable. Minimal Question For image/PDF imports from the iOS share sheet, should the supported implementation be: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension performs the upload/import itself rather than: Share Extension receives the file → Share Extension opens containing app → Main app performs upload/import Any guidance on the supported architecture would be appreciated. Thank you.
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5d
Reclaiming cached data from an `enumerateDirectory` call
If I'm in an enumerateDirectory call, I can very quickly fill in the fileID, parentID, and (maybe) the type attributes based on the directory entry I have loaded. That is, I can quickly fill in anything that is contained in the dirent structure in dirent.h, plus the parentID. However, if any other attributes are requested (say, flags), or if the file system doesn't store the filetype in the directory entry, then I need to do additional I/O and load an inode. If I have to load an inode, I might keep a reference to it and assume that I can clean it up later whenever there is a matching call to reclaimItem. But in the enumerateDirectory call, I never provide an FSItem to the system! By observation, I see that normally, a call to enumerateDirectory of this nature is followed up by a lookupItem call for every single fetched item, and then assumedly the system can later reclaim it if need be. At least, I tried various ways of listing directories, and each way I tried showed this behavior. If that's the case, then I can rely on a later reclaimItem call telling me when to clean up this cached data from memory. Is this guaranteed, however? I don't see a mention of this in the documentation, so I'm not sure if I can rely on this. Or, do I need to handle a case where, if I do additional I/O after enumerateDirectory, I might need to figure out when cached data should be cleaned up to avoid a "leak?" (Using the term "leak" loosely here, since in theory looking up the file later would make it reclaimable, but perhaps that might not happen.)
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5d
How to delete iOS simulator runtimes?
There are multiple iOS simulator runtimes located at /System/Library/AssetsV2/com_apple_MobileAsset_iOSSimulatorRuntime which I don't need. I tried the following approaches to delete them but not working. Xcode > Settings > Components > Delete (It can delete some but not all of them) xcrun simctl runtime list (It doesn't show the old runtimes) sudo rm (Operation not permitted) sudo rm -rf cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset Password: rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/AssetData/096-69246-684.dmg: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/AssetData: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/Info.plist: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset/version.plist: Operation not permitted rm: cc1f035290d244fca4f74d9d243fcd02d2876c27.asset: Operation not permitted I have two questions: Why "xcrun simctl runtime list" is unable to list some old runtimes? How to delete them?
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6d
What is the recommended way to count files recursively in a specific folder
Given a directory path (or NSURL) I need to get the total number of files/documents in that directory - recursively - as fast and light as possible. I don't need to list the files, and not filter them. All the APIs I found so far (NSFileManger, NSURL, NSDirectoryEnumerator) collect too much information, and those who are recursive - are aggregating the whole hierarchy before returning. If applied to large directory - this both implies a high CPU peak and slow action, and a huge memory impact - even if transient. My question: What API is best to use to accomplish this count, must I scan recursively the hierarchy? Is there a "lower level" API I could use that is below NSFileManager that provides better performance? One time in the middle-ages, I used old MacOS 8 (before MacOS X) file-system APIs that were immensely fast and allowed doing this without aggregating anything. I write my code in Objective-C, using latest Xcode and MacOS and of course ARC.
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1w
Are read-only filesystems currently supported by FSKit?
I'm writing a read-only filesystem extension. I see that the documentation for loadResource(resource:options:replyHandler:) claims that the --rdonly option is supported, which suggests that this should be possible. However, I have never seen this option provided to my filesystem extension, even if I return usableButLimited as a probe result (where it doesn't mount at all - FB19241327) or pass the -r or -o rdonly options to the mount(8) command. Instead I see those options on the volume's activate call. But other than saving that "readonly" state (which, in my case, is always the case) and then throwing on all write-related calls I'm not sure how to actually mark the filesystem as "read-only." Without such an indicator, the user is still offered the option to do things like trash items in Finder (although of course those operations do not succeed since I throw an EROFS error in the relevant calls). It also seems like the FSKit extensions that come with the system handle read-only strangely as well. For example, for a FAT32 filesystem, if I mount it like mount -r -F -t msdos /dev/disk15s1 /tmp/mnt Then it acts... weirdly. For example, Finder doesn't know that the volume is read-only, and lets me do some operations like making new folders, although they never actually get written to disk. Writing may or may not lead to errors and/or the change just disappearing immediately (or later), which is pretty much what I'm seeing in my own filesystem extension. If I remove the -F option (thus using the kernel extension version of msdos), this doesn't happen. Are read-only filesystems currently supported by FSKit? The fact that extensions like Apple's own msdos also seem to act weirdly makes me think this is just a current FSKit limitation, although maybe I'm missing something. It's not necessarily a hard blocker given that I can prevent writes from happening in my FSKit module code (or, in my case, just not implement such features at all), but it does make for a strange experience. (I reported this as FB21068845, although I'm mostly asking here because I'm not 100% sure this is not just me missing something.)
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1w
Sandboxed app loses iCloud Drive access mid-session on macOS 26 — kernel refuses sandbox extension, FP client rejected (NSFileProviderErrorDomain -2001)
Starting somewhere around macOS 26.3, my sandboxed file manager spontaneously loses access to ~/Library/Mobile Documents mid-session. Setup: at launch, the user grants access to '/', '/Users', or '~' via NSOpenPanel; I store a security-scoped bookmark and call startAccessingSecurityScopedResource(). This works fine - including iCloud Drive - until some point mid-session. When it breaks, two things happen simultaneously: Enumeration fails: NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=257 (NSFileReadNoPermissionError)< NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=1 (EPERM) Console shows the kernel refusing extension issuance: couldn't issue sandbox extension com.apple.app-sandbox.read for '/Users//Library/Mobile Documents': Operation not permitted And probing NSFileProviderManager confirms the process has been rejected system-wide: NSFileProviderManager.getDomainsWithCompletionHandler > NSFileProviderErrorDomain Code=-2001 "The application cannot be used right now." (underlying Code=-2014) What makes this specific to FP-backed paths: regular paths under the same '/' bookmark (~/Library/Application Support, etc.) stay accessible and recover normally with a fresh startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() call. Only ~/Library/Mobile Documents and its subtree fail - the entire tree, including the parent directory itself. Relaunch always restores access. What I've tried and ruled out: Re-resolving the bookmark + startAccessingSecurityScopedResource() - returns stale=false, granted=true but access is not restored; the kernel still refuses extension issuance for FP-traversing paths. NSFileCoordinator coordinated read - doesn't help; the coordinator depends on the same sandbox extension the kernel is refusing. Instantiating NSFileProviderManager(for: domain) per domain - fails with -2001 for every domain, confirming the rejection is process-wide, not path- or domain-specific. My working theory: when a FileProvider daemon (bird/cloudd/fileproviderd) restarts mid-session, the process's FP-client XPC registration is invalidated, and the kernel subsequently refuses to issue sandbox extensions for any path served by FP - even with a valid bookmark. The process seems to have no API path to re-register its FP-client identity without relaunching. Current workaround: I detect the -2001 response and prompt the user to relaunch, then do a programmatic self-relaunch if they confirm (which is obviously horribly intrusive). Questions: Is there an API that lets a sandboxed consumer app reconnect its FP-client identity mid-session, short of relaunching? Is there an entitlement or capability that would make the kernel's extension issuance resilient to FP daemon restarts? Has anyone else hit this on 26.x and found a workaround? Filed as FB22547671.
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1w
File Provider: case-insensitive collision check prevents mounting case-sensitive remote filesystems correctly
When a File Provider extension (NSFileProviderReplicatedExtension) mounts a Linux server via SFTP, remote directories containing files that differ only in case (e.g., "README" and "readme") are not represented correctly. The framework silently renames one file locally via the before-bounce mechanism, even though the extension reports both items with distinct identifiers and correct filenames. NSFileProviderActions.h states: "Collision checks should be case insensitive even if the filesystem or file provider might allow two coexisting filenames differing only by their case." This check runs in the framework before writing to disk. Placing the domain on a case-sensitive APFS volume via NSFileProviderDomain(displayName:userInfo:volumeURL:) does not help — the volume passes eligibility but the collision check still applies. This breaks any File Provider extension that mounts case-sensitive filesystems where case-variant filenames are common (especially git repositories). Is there any way to opt out of the case-insensitive collision check per domain? A supportsCaseSensitiveNames property on NSFileProviderDomain would solve this.
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2w
Project xcodeproj file can no longer by iCloud Sync
Following an unexpected error message while working in Xcode, the project file xcodeproj is no longer synced in iCloud Drive. The Finder shows a cloud icon with a ! and an error message : (NSFileProviderErrorDomain error -2005.) If the local file is zipped, and unzipped elsewhere on iCloud Drive, then the unzipped file can still not be iCloud Synced. Restoring the file from a Time Machine archive does not solve the issue. Apple Care Support finds that iCloud Drive is working fine except for this xcodeproj file and says the issue is Xcode related.
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Clarification on Disk Write Limits (bug_type 145) and Cross-Volume Write Amplification
Hello Apple Developer Support and Community, I am a senior software engineer investigating a Disk Writes Resource Violation (bug_type 145) for a photo-management application (BeePhotos v2.3.0). We observed a violation where the app dirtied approximately 1GB of file-backed memory in just 48 seconds, triggering a resource report. [Core Diagnostic Data] The following data is extracted from the .crash report: Event: disk writes Action taken: none Writes caused: 1073.96 MB over 48.28s (Average: 22.24 MB/second) System Limit: 1073.74 MB over 86,400 seconds (Daily limit) Device: iPhone 15 Pro (iPhone16,2) OS Version: iOS 26.4 (Build 23E244) Free Space: 3852.25 MB (Approx. 3.8 GB) [Implementation Details] Our application performs the following sequence for a 1GB video download: Download: Uses NSURLSessionDownloadTask to download the file to the system-provided location URL (in the /tmp or com.apple.nsurlsessiond directory). Move: In didFinishDownloadingToURL, we move the file to the App’s sandbox Library/Caches directory using FileManager.default.moveItem(at:to:). Save: We then add the file to the Photo Library via PHAssetCreationRequest.addResource(with:fileURL:options:) using the local URL in Library/Caches. [Technical Questions] I suspect the 1GB download is being "amplified" into ~3GB of total physical writes, and I would like to confirm the following: Cross-Volume Move: Does moving a file from the nsurlsessiond managed temporary directory to the App’s sandbox Library/Caches constitute a Cross-Volume Move on APFS? If so, does this effectively double the write count (1GB download + 1GB copy-on-move)? PHPhotoLibrary Ingestion: When using PHAssetCreationRequest, does the system perform another 1:1 data copy of the source file into the assets database? Would this result in a 3rd GB of writing? Low Disk Space Impact: Given the device only had 3.85 GB free, does the system’s "low disk space" state (near the 150MB threshold) increase the overhead for metadata updates or physical write amplification that counts towards this limit? Best Practices: To stay within the daily 1GB budget for high-resolution media, is it recommended to call PHAssetCreationRequest directly using the location URL from didFinishDownloadingToURL to avoid intermediary copies? Are there any permission or lifecycle risks with this approach? Any insights from the Apple engineering team or the community on how to minimize the write footprint during high-speed ingestion would be highly appreciated. Best regards
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Tahoe 26.4 breaks custom paths with NetFSMountURLSync?
Just wondering if anyone ran into this issue. I use NetFSMountURLSync for my application with which I allow the user to use a custom path as a mount point (instead of "/Volumes"). This has worked just fine for at least a decade now, but ... since the Tahoe 26.4 "update" mounting to a custom path only generates errors. Note: Mounting to "/Volumes" works correctly (mountpoint = NIL). Since I'm unaware of any changes; is this a bug introduced by Tahoe 26.4, or should I be using a different function to mount a network share?
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Apr ’26
System-wide deadlock in removexattr from revisiond / APFS
System-wide deadlock in removexattr from revisiond / APFS We're experiencing a deadlock on certains systems when our software is installed, which is causing side effects in our process (and likely others) such as blocked queues and increased memory usage. According to the spindump, revisiond appears to be holding an exclusive lock within the kernel. Process: revisiond [426] UUID: 5E9B9E04-984B-31AD-A4FF-A1A90B7D53A1 Path: /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/GenerationalStorage.framework/Versions/A/Support/revisiond Codesigning ID: com.apple.revisiond Shared Cache: 25AE5A2A-FE2A-3998-8D4E-F3C5C6E6CEB6 slid base address 0x189834000, slide 0x9834000 (System Primary) Architecture: arm64e Parent: launchd [1] UID: 0 Sudden Term: Tracked Memory Limit: 50MB Jetsam Priority: 40 Footprint: 6225 KB Time Since Fork: 1740319s Num samples: 940 (1-940) Num threads: 5 Note: 1 idle work queue thread omitted [...] Thread 0xc0616d 940 samples (1-940) priority 46 (base 4) last ran 241692.754s ago 940 start_wqthread + 8 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 7068) [0x189d0ab9c] 940 _pthread_wqthread + 292 (libsystem_pthread.dylib + 11852) [0x189d0be4c] 940 _dispatch_workloop_worker_thread + 692 (libdispatch.dylib + 85356) [0x189b65d6c] 940 _dispatch_root_queue_drain_deferred_wlh + 292 (libdispatch.dylib + 87156) [0x189b66474] 940 _dispatch_lane_invoke + 440 (libdispatch.dylib + 45048) [0x189b5bff8] 940 _dispatch_lane_serial_drain + 944 (libdispatch.dylib + 42420) [0x189b5b5b4] 940 _dispatch_client_callout + 16 (libdispatch.dylib + 113364) [0x189b6cad4] 940 _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32 (libdispatch.dylib + 7004) [0x189b52b5c] 940 ??? (revisiond + 168768) [0x10494d340] 940 ??? (revisiond + 165940) [0x10494c834] 940 ??? (revisiond + 40264) [0x10492dd48] 940 ??? (revisiond + 56680) [0x104931d68] 940 <patched truncated backtrace> 940 removexattr + 8 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 23768) [0x189cd1cd8] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 15240) [0xfffffe000886fb88] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 1886348) [0xfffffe0008a3888c] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 7730436) [0xfffffe0008fcb504] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 2759592) [0xfffffe0008b0dba8] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 2808244) [0xfffffe0008b199b4] *940 apfs_vnop_removexattr + 1044 (apfs + 474512) [0xfffffe000be8d4d0] *940 decmpfs_cnode_set_vnode_state + 80 (kernel.release.t6000 + 2945816) [0xfffffe0008b3b318] *940 IORWLockWrite + 184 (kernel.release.t6000 + 496184) [0xfffffe00088e5238] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 494624) [0xfffffe00088e4c20] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 619452) [0xfffffe00089033bc] *940 ??? (kernel.release.t6000 + 624472) [0xfffffe0008904758] The bulk of the other processes are waiting for that lock. (suspended, blocked by krwlock for reading owned by revisiond [426] thread 0xc0616d) (blocked by krwlock for writing owned by revisiond [426] thread 0xc0616d) Around the time of the event, these messages were logged by revision: 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781673-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f364 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] CSCopyChunkIDsForToken failed for 41639 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781716-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f365 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] updateEntry for new entry <private> failed 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781738-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f366 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] no entry for '<private>' 2026-03-06 18:49:37.781754-0500 0x16b7 Error 0x7f92f367 426 14 revisiond: [com.apple.revisiond:default] [ERROR] failed assembleInfoForOffset for fsid 16777234 fileid 359684022 offset 0 size 14334 (path <private>) Our agent uses Endpoint Security Framework to monitor events, and provide anti-tamper functionality for installed components and processes. While several EndpointSecurity calls appear in the spindump stack traces, we don't have any evidence that any calls from revisiond were blocked. What we'd really like to to understand what that lock is (appears to be decompressing an object on an APFS volume), what revisiond and APFS are doing with it, and what might cause it to deadlock. Of note, one of our processes is also waiting on that lock, one thread for reading and the other for writing. This issue affects machines running several macOS versions (15.x, 26.x). The machine in the examples is running macOS 26.3 (25D125)
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Apr ’26
App Group container being recreated on app update, causing complete data loss
I'm experiencing an issue where the App Group shared container appears to be recreated (with a new creation date) during an app update, resulting in complete loss of locally stored data. Background My app uses UserDefaults, Realm, Core Data, and CloudKit, with all local data stored in the App Group container (FileManager.containerURL(forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:)). The app has been available since 2016 and has a stable user base. Starting last year, I began receiving occasional reports from users saying all their data in the app had disappeared. To investigate, I added diagnostic logging that detects when an existing user's data appears to have been reset — specifically by checking the App Group container's file system creation date, and the existence and values of expected files. What the diagnostics revealed When the issue occurs, I observe the following: The App Group container has a recent creation date, far newer than the user's first launch date The Core Data store file's creation date is also immediately after the App Group container's recreation date I write the same values to both standard UserDefaults and the App Group version (UserDefaults(suiteName:)). Only the App Group version is reset — the standard side retains historical data The standard side still holds firstLaunchDate, initialVersion, and launchCount, confirming this is not a fresh install Here is a sample diagnostic log from an affected user: appGroupContainerCreationDate: 2026-03-30T18:44:10Z firstLaunchDate: 2025/01/05 4:00 initialVersion: 10.8.0 currentAppVersion: 10.14.14 previousVersion: 10.10.0 launchCount: 44 availableStorageMB: 46646 The container creation date (2026-03-30) is clearly inconsistent with the user's first launch date (2025-01-05) and launch count (44). The container creation date is obtained with the following code: let appGroupURL = FileManager.default.containerURL( forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier: "group.xxx.xxx" )! let attributes = try? FileManager.default.attributesOfItem(atPath: appGroupURL.path) let containerCreationDate = attributes?[.creationDate] as? Date Scale and pattern Reports began increasing in late November last year Over 85% of affected cases are on iOS 26 Most affected devices have plenty of available storage (46GB+ in the example above) This is likely occurring during a normal app update (not a fresh install or device restore) Ruled-out hypotheses Not a fresh install — firstLaunchDate, initialVersion, and launchCount are preserved in standard UserDefaults Not a storage issue — affected users typically have tens of GBs of free space, making it unlikely that iOS purged the data due to low storage Not an app-side code change — the App Group identifier and entitlements have not been changed Not triggered by silent notifications, background tasks, or widget activity — these processes do write to the App Group container, but the recreation does not appear to occur immediately after any of these operations Questions Has anyone else observed App Group containers being recreated (new creation date, empty contents) during a standard app update? Is there a known iOS behavior or bug that could cause this, particularly on iOS 26? Are there any recommended mitigations? Any insight would be greatly appreciated. This is a data loss issue affecting real users, and I'd like to understand whether this is an iOS-level problem or something I should be handling differently on my end.
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1
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275
Activity
Apr ’26
My macOS app is unable to read a Managed Preferences plist unless the App Sandbox is disabled. Is there any solution to read the MDM plist file while the sandbox is still enabled?
I created two sample apps — one sandboxed and one non‑sandboxed. I tested reading Managed Preferences using bash commands, CFPreferencesCopyValue for a domain, and defaults read. Everything works correctly only when the sandbox is disabled in the entitlements. When the sandbox is enabled, I’m unable to read values from /Library/Managed Preferences/. Is there any supported way for a sandboxed macOS app to read an MDM-delivered preference plist under /Library/Managed Preferences/? Any guidance on the correct and Apple‑supported method would be appreciated.
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3
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266
Activity
Mar ’26
copyfile Sometimes Fails to copy .DS_Store when Copying a Folder But Does Not Report Usable Error
Testing copyfile on a folder on an external volume (which takes a bit a of time) I'm running into an issue where copyfile gets to the end of the operation and then just fails. In the callback I can see that the failure occurs on a .DS_Store file inside the folder. So for a .DS_Store it is simple enough for me to just ignore the error and return COPYFILE_SKIP but the somewhat more concerning issue here is that the true error reason is seemingly not reported? In the callback if I read errno it is 0. When copyfile returns it returns -1 after I return COPYFILE_QUIT (and errno is 0) so I don't know what the error is or the appropriate way to handle it. For .DS_Store just skipping seems reasonable but when copying a folder it may be appropriate to get the true failure reason. But checking the last path component of source path seems like a hack way to handle errors. If a file in the copying folder with important user data I can't just silently skip it - it isn't clear to me how I should properly proceed in a situation where I can't get the actual reason for the failure.
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6
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324
Activity
Mar ’26
filecopy fails with errno 34 "Result too large" when copying from NAS
A user of my app reported that when my app copies files from a QNAP NAS to a folder on their Mac, they get the error "Result too large". When copying the same files from the Desktop, it works. I asked them to reproduce the issue with the sample code below and they confirmed that it reproduces. They contacted QNAP for support who in turn contacted me saying that they are not sure they can do anything about it, and asking if Apple can help. Both the app user and QNAP are willing to help, but at this point I'm also unsure how to proceed. Can someone at Apple say anything about this? Is this something QNAP should solve, or is this a bug in macOS? P.S.: I've had users in the past who reported the same issue with other brands, mostly Synology. import Cocoa @main class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate { func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) { let openPanel = NSOpenPanel() openPanel.canChooseDirectories = true openPanel.runModal() let source = openPanel.urls[0] openPanel.canChooseFiles = false openPanel.runModal() let destination = openPanel.urls[0] do { try copyFile(from: source, to: destination.appendingPathComponent(source.lastPathComponent, isDirectory: false)) } catch { NSAlert(error: error).runModal() } NSApp.terminate(nil) } private func copyFile(from source: URL, to destination: URL) throws { if try source.resourceValues(forKeys: [.isDirectoryKey]).isDirectory == true { try FileManager.default.createDirectory(at: destination, withIntermediateDirectories: false) for source in try FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(at: source, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil) { try copyFile(from: source, to: destination.appendingPathComponent(source.lastPathComponent, isDirectory: false)) } } else { try copyRegularFile(from: source, to: destination) } } private func copyRegularFile(from source: URL, to destination: URL) throws { let state = copyfile_state_alloc() defer { copyfile_state_free(state) } var bsize = UInt32(16_777_216) if copyfile_state_set(state, UInt32(COPYFILE_STATE_BSIZE), &bsize) != 0 { throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno)) } else if copyfile_state_set(state, UInt32(COPYFILE_STATE_STATUS_CB), unsafeBitCast(copyfileCallback, to: UnsafeRawPointer.self)) != 0 { throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno)) } else if copyfile(source.path, destination.path, state, copyfile_flags_t(COPYFILE_DATA | COPYFILE_SECURITY | COPYFILE_NOFOLLOW | COPYFILE_EXCL | COPYFILE_XATTR)) != 0 { throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno)) } } private let copyfileCallback: copyfile_callback_t = { what, stage, state, src, dst, ctx in if what == COPYFILE_COPY_DATA { if stage == COPYFILE_ERR { return COPYFILE_QUIT } } return COPYFILE_CONTINUE } }
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596
Activity
Mar ’26
How does Numbers.app detect that a document was moved to Recently Deleted, and can third-party apps implement the same behavior?
The Numbers.app reopens the last edited document when the app launches. If the document was moved to another folder in the Files.app while the app was not running, Numbers.app correctly tracks the file and reopens it. However, if the document was deleted in the Files.app and moved to Recently Deleted, Numbers.app does not reopen the document when the app launches. Question : How does Numbers.app detect that a document has been moved to Recently Deleted? Can third-party apps implement the same behavior? What I tested : If a file is moved while the app is not running, resolving a bookmark successfully tracks the moved file. Files that are deleted via the Files.app appear in Recently Deleted, but those files are actually moved to the following directories: iCloud Drive /var/mobile/Library/Mobile Documents/.Trash/ On My iPad /var/mobile/Containers/Shared/AppGroup/{UUID}/File Provider Storage/.Trash/ App sandbox Documents directory ([On My iPad]/[Any App]) /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/{UUID}/Documents/.Trash/ When resolving the bookmark after deletion, the bookmark still resolves successfully and returns the new file URL inside the .Trash directory. I tried the following checks on the resolved URL: Checking file existence Checking read/write accessibility Inspecting bookmark resolution results Using APIs related to NSTrashDirectory See https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/813329#813329021 All of these behaved the same as when the file was moved to a normal directory. None of these checks allowed me to detect that the file had been deleted. Additional experiment: I suspected that the app might simply check whether the path contains ".Trash", so I performed the following experiment. If a .numbers file is moved to /var/mobile/Containers/Data/Application/{UUID}/Documents/.Trash/ then The file appears in Recently Deleted in Files.app Numbers.app does not reopen the document when the app launches However, if the same file is moved to Documents/Trash Documents/.Trashed Documents/Any Folder/.Trash then The file does not appear in Recently Deleted in Files Numbers does reopen the document when launched This suggests that Numbers.app is not simply checking whether the path contains ".Trash".
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4
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163
Activity
Mar ’26
NSPathControl Causing Disk I/O Reading NSURL Resource Values On the Main Thread
Sort of a continuation of - https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/813641 I've made a great effort to get NSURL -getResourceValue:forKey: calls etc off the main thread. Great progress. So now I'm working with a file on a really slow network volume I discovered a little hang and luckily enough I'm attached to the debugger so I paused that thing. I see where I'm at. It is: NSPathControl's setURL:. It goes a little something like this: in realpath$DARWIN_EXTSN () +fileSystemRealPath () +[FSNode(SandboxChecks) canAccessURL:withAuditToken:operation:] () +FSNode(SandboxChecks) canReadFromSandboxWithAuditToken:] () LaunchServices::URLPropertyProvider::prepareLocalizedNameValue () LaunchServices::URLPropertyProvider::prepareValues () prepareValuesForBitmap () FSURLCopyResourcePropertiesForKeysInternal () CFURLCopyResourcePropertiesForKeys () -[NSURL resourceValuesForKeys:error:] () in function signature specialization <Arg[1] = Dead> of Foundation._NSFileManagerBridge.displayName(atPath: Swift.String) -> Swift.String () in displayName () -[NSPathCell _autoUpdateCellContents] () -[NSPathCell setURL:] () Could maybe, NSPathControl get the display name etc. asynchronously? and maybe just stick raw path components in as a placeholder while it is reading async? Or something like that? If I can preload the resource keys it needs I would but once the NSURL asks on the main main thread I think it will just dump the cache out, per the run loop rules.
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4
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409
Activity
Mar ’26