macOS
Sage advice to overcome Mac maladies
Who is in control?
QI have a couple of apps that control other apps. Since upgrading to macOS Mojave, they keep prompting me to allow them to connect, including to something called System Events. Can I make those dialogs go away? Or is the problem that the apps are incompatible with Mojave? by Emma simpson
AThe dialogs are a feature of Mojave’s improved privacy protection, and you should expect them where apps that control other apps are concerned; they don’t mean that anything is incompatible. Visit the app’s support site to check whether you’re running the latest version, and read any advice given there about dealing with this in Mojave.
This new privacy system puts you in control of what protected data you let apps access. If an app wants to look at your emails, then it must obtain your consent to do that. If another app wants control of Mail to read your messages, that too needs consent.
System Events is a hidden, app-like service that handles quite a few automation features; you may also come across alerts in relation to other Core Services technologies, such as Image Events and Database Events.
Each control relationship thus has to be agreed by you individually. When you give your consent, the controlling app is added to the Automation list in > System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy. There’s currently no way an app can ask you to pre-authorise those rights, so your consent has to be sought one pair at a time. Once given, it’s added to the Automation list and you won’t be troubled for consent for that pairing again.