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Fixing “app is damaged”

Gatekeeper, a bad download, and the one command I will type. Nothing else.

Theo Brandt ·

Why the warning shows up

macOS says an app is damaged when it often isn't. The file arrived from the internet, Gatekeeper set a quarantine flag, and the signature check got nervous. I see it on utilities, plugins, and the occasional build a developer posted the same morning. I also see it when someone mailed a zip through three forwards and the archive got mangled. Those are different problems. The warning uses one sentence for both, which is rude.

A clock that's wildly wrong can also fail a certificate check. Before you start deleting things, look at the date in the menu bar. I have lost twenty minutes to a laptop that thought it was March.

The click that usually fixes it

Don't double-click the app again. That path just repeats the warning.

  1. Move the app to the Applications folder if it is still sitting in Downloads.
  2. Control-click or right-click the app icon.
  3. Choose Open.
  4. Confirm in the dialog. That confirmation is the part the double-click never offers.

If the developer shipped a disk image, drag the app out of the image first. Launching from inside the mounted image is how you get a second, weirder failure after you think it worked.

The quarantine flag

When Open still fails and I trust the source — the developer's own site, not a random mirror with a coupon — I clear the quarantine flag on that one app. This is not a blessing for every file on the disk. It's one path.

Quit the app. Open Terminal. The command is the stock one, and the path has to be the actual app bundle:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Example.app

Swap in the real name. If the path has spaces, quote it. If xattr says the attribute isn't there, the problem is not quarantine and you should stop typing commands you found under a video.

Then try the right-click Open once more. I do this for tools I meant to install. I don't do it for an app I don't remember downloading.

When I re-download instead

  • The zip is smaller than the developer said it would be. The copy is incomplete. Download it again.
  • I got the file from a client who got it from a forum. I go get it from the vendor.
  • An older build of a utility registered itself as the default app for movies or stills and Finder started warning on ordinary files. That happened with a Compresto build before 1.30.1. Update the app. Don't "fix" Finder by lowering the shields.

A plugin that fails inside Final Cut is a cousin of this problem, not the same one. If the app opens and the plugin doesn't load, you're in a version mismatch. Read the plugin's own note for the host version. Clearing quarantine on the NLE will not make a wrong plugin new.

What I don't turn off

I don't disable Gatekeeper for the whole Mac because one utility had a bad morning. I don't turn off SIP. I don't run a "cleaner" that offers to fix damaged apps as a bundle of other changes. Those tools love a project folder, and I don't love them back.

If a build keeps failing after a clean download, a right-click Open, and a quarantine clear, I write the developer and I keep the previous version that actually launched. Previous versions live on the program page for that reason. A deadline is a bad time to be brave with security settings you won't remember you changed.