IOS – MacOS 10.15 Catalina asks “AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain”

backupfinderiosmacos

I have just updated to MacOS 10.15 Catalina, and it asks "AMPDevicesAgent wants to use your confidential information stored in iOS backup in your keychain" when I try to backup my iPhone.

It is a bit unexpected to see a requester like this without any explanation why, and whether it is legitimate. Mac users who are less technical may be confused by this, and others may also be susipicious as to whether this is a legitimate request from MacOS itself and should be permitted or not.

How can I tell if this alert is legitimate?

Best Answer

The process name is a legitimate process running as part of an iOS device local backup. Enter your login Keychain password to proceed.

To check that the prompt is actually on behalf of the right process, open Activity Monitor, search for the process name, select Sample Process and confirm the path is within

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AMPDevices.framework

The real fix to stop the error message from appearing is to add AMPDevicesAgent access to iOS Backup in Keychain, which you can do from Keychain Access as usual (link to my blog post has steps if you need, I think it’s a bit off topic for this Q&A).