MacOS – Gatekeeper notification doesn’t show location of application

gatekeeperhigh sierrahomebrewmacosspotlight

I just received a system notification that an application I downloaded with Homebrew was not allowed to launch. This is fine, but the notification gives me no information about where this app resides. I downloaded many applications with Homebrew and this is most likely inside a package. Using Console or some other method, how can I find out where this app is on my file system? I am wishing the system notification window showed the path to the file in question so it can be removed or allowed.

Best Answer

Spotlight might be the easiest

mdfind Launcher.app

If you get too many results, mdfind -name Launcher or mdfind -name Launcher.app might narrow the scope. I'm able to locate all the things I have installed via homebrew so you can check that for another install by trying the results of brew list and feeding one other package to check spotlight.

Related Solutions

MacOS – Notification Center preferences shows duplicate apps

Open terminal and run this command:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Versions/A/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user && pkill Finder

Or, if you have OnyX utility app, go to "Maintenance" > "Rebuild" > check on "LaunchServices" (leave the other options unchecked) > execute

Any way to “right-click->open” application using application launcher or AppleScript

You could create an Automator service with a Run Shell Script action like this:

for f; do
  q=$(xattr -p com.apple.quarantine "$f" 2> /dev/null)
  if [[ $q ]]; then
    xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "$f"
    open "$f"
    xattr -w com.apple.quarantine "$q" "$f"
  else
    open "$f"
  fi
done

Set the input type to files or folders (just folders doesn't seem to include application bundles) and set "pass input" to "as arguments".

Or in Alfred 2 you could add a File Action trigger and connect it to a Run Script action like this:

f="{query}"
q=$(xattr -p com.apple.quarantine "$f" 2> /dev/null)
if [[ $q ]]; then
  xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "$f"
  open "$f"
  xattr -w com.apple.quarantine "$q" "$f"
else
  open "$f"
fi

If you want to keep Gatekeeper enabled but make it ignore some applications, just run something like xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SomeApp.app.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacOS – Notification Center preferences shows duplicate apps

Any way to “right-click->open” application using application launcher or AppleScript

Related Question