Script attachment enables advanced users to create powerful workflows that start in your app. NSUserScriptTask lets you implement script attachment even if your app is sandboxed. This post explains how to set that up.
IMPORTANT Most sandboxed apps are sandboxed because they ship on the Mac App Store [1]. While I don’t work for App Review, and thus can’t make definitive statements on their behalf, I want to be clear that NSUserScriptTask is intended to be used to implement script attachment, not as a general-purpose sandbox bypass mechanism.
If you have questions or comments, please put them in a new thread. Place it in the Privacy & Security > General subtopic, and tag it with App Sandbox.
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—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
[1] Most but not all. There are good reasons to sandbox your app even if you distribute it directly. See The Case for Sandboxing a Directly Distributed App.
Implementing Script Attachment in a Sandboxed App
Some apps support script attachment, that is, they allow a user to configure the app to run a script when a particular event occurs. For example:
A productivity app might let a user automate repetitive tasks by configuring a toolbar button to run a script.
A mail client might let a user add a script that processes incoming mail.
When adding script attachment to your app, consider whether your scripting mechanism is internal or external:
An internal script is one that only affects the state of the app.
A user script is one that operates as the user, that is, it can change the state of other apps or the system as a whole.
Supporting user scripts in a sandboxed app is a conundrum. The App Sandbox prevents your app from changing the state of other apps, but that’s exactly what your app needs to do to support user scripts.
NSUserScriptTask resolves this conundrum. Use it to run scripts that the user has placed in your app’s Script folder. Because these scripts were specifically installed by the user, their presence indicates user intent and the system runs them outside of your app’s sandbox.
Provide easy access to your app’s Script folder
Your application’s Scripts folder is hidden within ~/Library. To make it easier for the user to add scripts, add a button or menu item that uses NSWorkspace to show it in the Finder:
let scriptsDir = try FileManager.default.url(for: .applicationScriptsDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: true)
NSWorkspace.shared.activateFileViewerSelecting([scriptsDir])
Enumerate the available scripts
To show a list of scripts to the user, enumerate the Scripts folder:
let scriptsDir = try FileManager.default.url(for: .applicationScriptsDirectory, in: .userDomainMask, appropriateFor: nil, create: true)
let scriptURLs = try FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(at: scriptsDir, includingPropertiesForKeys: [.localizedNameKey])
let scriptNames = try scriptURLs.map { url in
return try url.resourceValues(forKeys: [.localizedNameKey]).localizedName!
}
This uses .localizedNameKey to get the name to display to the user. This takes care of various edge cases, for example, it removes the file name extension if it’s hidden.
Run a script
To run a script, instantiate an NSUserScriptTask object and call its execute() method:
let script = try NSUserScriptTask(url: url)
try await script.execute()
Run a script with arguments
NSUserScriptTask has three subclasses that support additional functionality depending on the type of the script.
Use the NSUserUnixTask subsclass to run a Unix script and:
Supply command-line arguments.
Connect pipes to stdin, stdout, and stderr.
Get the termination status.
Use the NSUserAppleScriptTask subclass to run an AppleScript, executing either the run handler or a custom Apple event.
Use the NSUserAutomatorTask subclass to run an Automator workflow, supplying an optional input.
To determine what type of script you have, try casting it to each of the subclasses:
let script: NSUserScriptTask = …
switch script {
case let script as NSUserUnixTask:
… use Unix-specific functionality …
case let script as NSUserAppleScriptTask:
… use AppleScript-specific functionality …
case let script as NSUserAutomatorTask:
… use Automatic-specific functionality …
default:
… use generic functionality …
}
General
RSS for tagPrioritize user privacy and data security in your app. Discuss best practices for data handling, user consent, and security measures to protect user information.
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I am currently unable to enable passkey in my app so I am having to tell my users to skip the prompts for using passkey. We have noticed that after a few times of this the OS will stop asking the user to register their passkey. The question is, how long does this last before the OS asks you to use passkey again? Is it permanent until you re-install the app? Just looking for a time frame if anyone knows.
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Authentication Services
冷启动后我们读文件,发现:"error_msg":"未能打开文件“FinishTasks.plist”,因为你没有查看它的权限。
是否有这些问题:
「iOS 26 iPhone 16,2 cold launch file access failure」)
核心内容:多名开发者反馈 iPhone 15 Pro(iOS 26.0/26.1)冷启动时读取 Documents 目录下的 plist 文件提示权限拒绝,切后台再切前台恢复,苹果员工回复「建议延迟文件操作至 applicationDidBecomeActive 后」。
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
My app has been rejected by App Store review because the sign in with Apple functionality is not working properly. I'm able to reproduce the issue on my end but I don't understand why it's happening.
I have two other apps that implement the same OAuth flow in an identical manner, and those apps have no issues signing in with Apple.
I've copied my OAuth flow to a fresh project to see if that would make a difference, and it gives me the exact same error. In the simulator I get "invalid_request, invalid web redirect URL", and on-device the FaceID authentication fails with a very non-specific "Sign Up Not Completed" error.
I'm completely out of ideas here, so any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!
AFAIU a new screen capture notification was added within the Control Center in Sequoia 15.2, see attached examples:
My question is whether there is some way to suppress this notification preferably via an MDM configuration profile.
See also https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255886645?sortBy=rank for more information.
Thanks,
Doron.
Hello,
I am developing a macOS menu bar window-management utility (similar in functionality to Magnet / Rectangle) that relies on the Accessibility (AXUIElement) API to move and resize windows and on global hotkeys.
I am facing a consistent issue when App Sandbox is enabled.
Summary:
App Sandbox enabled
Hardened Runtime enabled
Apple Events entitlement enabled
NSAccessibilityDescription present in Info.plist
AXIsProcessTrustedWithOptions is called with prompt enabled
Observed behavior:
When App Sandbox is enabled, the Accessibility permission prompt never appears.
The app cannot be manually added in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.
AXIsProcessTrusted always returns false.
As a result, window snapping does not work.
When App Sandbox is disabled:
The Accessibility prompt appears correctly.
The app functions as expected.
This behavior occurs both:
In local builds
In TestFlight builds
My questions:
Is this expected behavior for sandboxed macOS apps that rely on Accessibility APIs?
Are window-management utilities expected to ship without App Sandbox enabled?
Is there any supported entitlement or configuration that allows a sandboxed app to request Accessibility permission?
Thank you for any clarification.
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
We recently upgraded OpenSSL from version 1.1.1 to 3.4.0. After this upgrade, we observed that PKCS#12 files generated using OpenSSL 3.4.0 fail to import into the macOS Keychain with the following error:
Failed to import PKCS#12 data: -25264
(MAC verification failed during PKCS12 import (wrong password?))
This issue is reproducible on macOS 14.8.2. The same PKCS#12 files import successfully on other macOS versions, including 15.x and 26.x.
Additionally, PKCS#12 files that fail to import on macOS 14.8 work correctly when copied and imported on other macOS versions without any errors.
PKCS#12 Creation
The PKCS#12 data is created using the following OpenSSL API:
const char* platformPKCS12SecureKey =
_platformSecureKey.has_value() ? _platformSecureKey.value().c_str() : NULL;
PKCS12* p12 = PKCS12_create(
platformPKCS12SecureKey,
NULL,
keys,
_cert,
NULL,
0, 0, 0, 0, 0
);
if (!p12)
{
throw std::runtime_error("Failed to create PKCS#12 container");
}
PKCS#12 Import
The generated PKCS#12 data is imported into the macOS Keychain using the following code:
NSString *certPassKey = [NSString stringWithUTF8String:getCertPassKey()];
NSDictionary *options = @{
(__bridge id)kSecImportExportPassphrase: certPassKey,
(__bridge id)kSecAttrAccessible:
(__bridge id)kSecAttrAccessibleAfterFirstUnlockThisDeviceOnly,
(__bridge id)kSecAttrIsExtractable: @YES,
(__bridge id)kSecAttrIsPermanent: @YES,
(__bridge id)kSecAttrAccessGroup: APP_GROUP
};
CFArrayRef items = NULL;
OSStatus status = SecPKCS12Import(
(__bridge CFDataRef)pkcs12Data,
(__bridge CFDictionaryRef)options,
&items
);
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
macOS
Signing Certificates
iCloud Keychain Verification Codes
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Hi,
I have an application that uses SecureEnclave keys to protect secrets. By passing an LAContext object to the Secure Enclave operations, authentication state can be preserved across decrypt operations, and you do not need to re-authenticate for doing different operations.
However, for security reasons, I would like to avoid that it is possible to do operations in batch with certain keys generated by the Secure Enclave, by any application. This would avoid malicious binaries to batch-extract all the secrets that are protected by a key from my Secure Enclave, and force to re-authenticate on every operation.
Is there a way to prevent batch operations without re-authenticating for Secure Enclave keys?
thanks,
Remko
I noticed, that even though my AutoFill Credential Provider Extension works with Safari for both Passwords and Passkeys, it doesn't work in context menus inside arbitrary textfields, meanwhile the same is true for the Apple Passwords app. This is a great hit to AutoFill productivity, as my extension is unable to fill textfields by just going to the context menu and clicking AutoFill > Passwords..
Is this a feature only available to Apple via private APIs, or is this something I can interface with?
I checked and the Passwords app does use some undocumented but non-private entitlements:
[Key] com.apple.authentication-services.access-credential-identities
[Value]
[Bool] true
I also checked the responsible executable for some hints (AutoFillPanelService) however found nothing that would lead me to believe this is a public extension point.
Another idea I had was trying to use a macOS Service for this, however Services in the "General" category won't show up in any context menu, only in the Application's Main Menu.
hello,
My organization has an outlook add-in that requires auth into our platform. As Microsoft forces Auth on MacOS to use WKWebView https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/concepts/browsers-used-by-office-web-add-ins, we are running into a situation that we cannot use passkeys as an auth method as we are unable to trigger WebAuthN flows.
We’ve raised this in Microsoft side but they have deferred to Apple given WKWebView is Safari based.
This is a big blocker for us to achieve a full passwordless future. Has anyone come across this situation?
Thank you.
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Authentication Services
WebKit
General:
Forums topic: Privacy & Security
Forums tag: Privacy
Developer > Security — This also covers privacy topics.
App privacy details on the App Store
UIKit > Protecting the User’s Privacy documentation
Bundle Resources > Privacy manifest files documentation
TN3181 Debugging an invalid privacy manifest technote
TN3182 Adding privacy tracking keys to your privacy manifest technote
TN3183 Adding required reason API entries to your privacy manifest technote
TN3184 Adding data collection details to your privacy manifest technote
TN3179 Understanding local network privacy technote
Handling ITMS-91061: Missing privacy manifest forums post
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
Without developer mode, I was able to get Password AutoFill to work in my SwiftUI app with my local Vapor server using ngrok and adding the Associated Domains capability with the value webcredentials:....ngrok-free.app and the respective apple-app-site-association file on my local server in /.well-known/. (works on device, but not in the simulator).
However, if I use the developer mode (webcredentials:....ngrok-free.app?mode=developer) it only works halfway when running from Xcode: I get asked to save the password, but the saved passwords are not picked up, when I try to login again. Neither on device, nor in the simulator. If I remove the ?mode=developer it seems to work as expected.
Is this by design, or am I missing something?
var body: some View {
...
Section(header: Text("Email")) {
TextField("Email", text: $viewModel.credentials.username)
.textContentType(.username)
.autocapitalization(.none)
.keyboardType(.emailAddress)
}
Section(header: Text("Passwort")) {
SecureField("Passwort", text: $viewModel.credentials.password)
.textContentType(.password)
}
...
}
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
SwiftUI
Universal Links
Authentication Services
Autofill
Our business model is to identify Frauds using our advanced AI/ML model. However, in order to do so we need to collect many device information which seems to be ok according to https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-use/
But it's also prohibited to generate a fingerprint, so I need more clarification here.
Does it mean I can only use the data to identify that a user if either fraud or not but I cannot generate a fingerprint to identify the device?
If so, I can see many SKD in the market that generates Fingerprints like https://fingerprint.com/blog/local-device-fingerprint-ios/
and https://shield.com/?
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Analytics & Reporting
DeviceCheck
Device Activity
Privacy
For security reasons, my application needs to prohibit external devices. If it is determined that the current phone is connected to any external devices, including non MFI authenticated devices, the app will exit. Please tell me how to do it? Thanks for your help.
I'm working on a Password Manager app that integrates with the AutoFill Credential Provider to provide stored passwords and OTPs to the user within Safari and other apps.
Password AutoFill works perfectly.
I'm unable to get iOS to register that the app supports OTPs though.
I've followed the Apple documentation here: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/authenticationservices/providing-one-time-passcodes-to-autofill and added "ProvidesOneTimeCodes" to the AutoFill extension's Info.plist, but iOS just doesn't seem to notice the OTP support.
<key>ASCredentialProviderExtensionCapabilities</key>
<dict>
<key>ProvidesOneTimeCodes</key>
<true/>
<key>ProvidesPasswords</key>
<true/>
</dict>
Any help would be greatly appreicated!
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Extensions
Entitlements
Autofill
Authentication Services
The header documentation for the (deprecated) LAContext.evaluatedPolicyDomainState property contains the following:
@warning Please note that the value returned by this property can change exceptionally between major OS versions even if the state of biometry has not changed.
I noticed that the documentation for the new LAContext.domainState property does not contain a similar warning. I also found this related thread from 2016/17.
Is the domainState property not susceptible to changes between major OS versions? Or is this generally not an issue anymore?
The Passwords App is accessing websites found in the ASCredentialIdentityStore associated with a 3rd Party password management app (SamuraiSafe). This behaviour appears to be associated with looking up website favicons in order to display in Passwords. However the websites contacted are not stored in the Passwords App/iCloud KeyChain - only the 3rd Party password management app (SamuraiSafe). This is effectively leaking website information stored in the 3rd Party password management app.
I first noticed this behaviour on macOS, and it appears to happen every 8 days. Today it was seen on iOS.
The behaviour is revealed through the App Privacy Report on iOS (and LittleSnitch on macOS).
I would not be surprised to see the Passwords App do this for websites saved in the Passwords App/iCloud KeyChain, however I believe it should not be arbitrarily testing every website found in the ASCredentialIdentityStore as reference to that website url should be entirely under the control of the end user.
See attached screenshots from App Privacy Report.
Filed bug with Apple: FB16682423
Hello,
I have now been looking for a while of a way to get the number of MAU of my appstore app through the apple connect API. I ended up thinking i might actually be able to compute it with https://developer.apple.com/documentation/analytics-reports/app-sessions this App Sessions report. My question is thus the following :
Does the Sessions number actually gives me the number of all sessions, or only those from opt-in users ? It says that it is based on users who have agreed to share their data with Apple and developers, so I was wondering whether or not through the use of the methods described on this page https://developer.apple.com/documentation/analytics-reports/privacy,
it meant that the data was anonymized/encoded such that it would be close to the actual Sessions number, or if it meant it only counted opt-in users to compute the Sessions numer.
Thank you for your time, I hope I made myself as clear as possible. Ask me if you want more precisions or if you don't understand my question.
I have a very basic binary question around passkeys.
Assuming everything is on latest and greatest version with respect to iOS, when user starts creating a passkey in platform-authenticator i.e., iCloudKeyChain (Apple Password Manager) ,
will iCloudKeyChain create a hardware-bound passkey in secure-enclave i.e., is brand new key-pair created right inside Secure-enclave ?
OR
will the keypair be created in software i.e., software-bound-passkey ?? i.e., software-bound keypair and store the private-key locally in the device encrypted with a key that is of course created in secure-enclave.
Topic:
Privacy & Security
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Passkeys in iCloud Keychain
Authentication Services
Hi! Is it possible to disable the option for users to 'Sign in with Another Device'? I encounter this message during the authentication process and I want to prevent it from appearing. I appreciate your help and look forward to your response.