How to fix damaged app message on macOS

“This tight security causes some apps to throw ‘this app is damaged’ error.”

Apple has tightened up the Gatekeeper security in its latest operating system and one very visible change is that the option to allow apps from unidentified developers is no longer there.

How to fix damaged app message on macOS Sierra  or later

To resolve Gatekeeper issues on macOS Sierra and unlock images and programs ( annoying image/application is damaged messages pretending you cannot open things ).

For that reason you might have to completely disable Gatekeeper checks, and to do that open your terminal and type:

sudo spctl --master-disable

**Enter your password and you’re done. Note that there are two (2) dashes before master. You might miss that while copy/pasting. So I will leave a screenshot below. I would suggest you type the command manually.

To verify that your operation was successful you need to Open Settings and verify that the Anywhere option is now visible as shown below.

Revert the Gatekeeper Settings

To enable Gatekeeper again, enter the following command (notice two dashes before ‘master’).

sudo spctl --master-enable

Use the GateKeeper Helper setting

Or we recommend to use our Helper to do that for you, the helper offer the following options:

  1. Disable Your GateKeeper.
  2. Enable Your GateKeeper.
  3. Allow Single App To ByPass The GateKeeper.



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12 Responses

  1. afropoker says:

    This is not working on Catalina. The move to trash thing still showing.

  2. speedave says:

    Doesn’t work on Catalina

  3. speedave says:

    This method doesn’t seem to be working in Catalina OS

  4. iklash says:

    For Catalina OS

    sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /Applications/yourappname.app

  5. aradafkhami says:

    does not work in Mac os
    catalina

  6. mattnada says:

    This no longer works on Apple’s new M1 computers 🙁 How do we fix it now?

  7. papas68 says:

    This change was introduced in Mac OS 10.15.7 (last version on Catalina) probably because i was last using it just 1 month back and the spctl manpage had the new guidlines. The global command works perfectly on all versions above OS 10.15.7 till Mac OS Montery 12.2.1 (latest stable version).

    sudo spctl –global-enable

    And then try this to confirm
    spctl –status

  8. papas68 says:

    sudo spctl –global-disable

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