MacOS – Is it possible to give/remove permissions to/from apps via the command line

accessibilitycatalinacommand linemacosprivacy

Logi Options seems to forget it has Input Monitoring and Accessibility permissions frequently, so I have to go in and remove the permissions and add them back to get the scroll wheel on my MX Anywhere 2s mouse to work again. I'd like to automate that process. Is there some way to interact with the Catalina permissions via the command line (via sudo of course)?

Best Answer

The short answer is no - these are designed by Apple to be user granted, at the last moment, when you decide you wish to cede control to an app as opposed to pre-cleared and scripted. The better fix is to sort out why that App keeps changing or your OS is dropping the entitlements - you should be able to set it once.

It’s pretty easy to read the database to see what settings have been configured, not designed to change the settings directly via shell. (If you find a way, it might be worth $$ to report that to Apple - https://developer.apple.com/security-bounty/)

A longer answer is, kind-of - if you have MDM, and set up a framework, supervise the device (or opt in to the MDM automating these settings) and then craft configuration profiles that once signed and trusted, can be installed by script.

To get started on this takes quite a bit of time. Here’s a 30+ minute video that covers the basics and two pretty substantial web pages by Apple documenting the overall ideas and sample implementations.

https://www.jamf.com/resources/videos/a-rose-by-any-other-name-pppc-tcc-user-data-protection-and-you/ (The slide notes are very good to skim before you watch the video)
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/mdm/mdmbf9e668/web
https://support.apple.com/guide/deployment-reference-macos/welcome/web (for reference once you’ve gotten the majority of the items in the previous two links sorted out)

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IOS – Controlling iOS apps via command line

You can install OpenSSH in Cydia and use a SSH client (say, Panic's Prompt - look for it in the App Store), that makes a pretty nice terminal emulator for iOS.

As to running programs from the command line, sure, no problem, but none of them are designed to work in CLI. They don't retrieve/parse arguments, don't output...etc If you can get some out of Cydia or compile them yourself, it'll work, but I don't think you'll be able to command Apple's own apps that way.

Adding variables to a shell command in Automator

There are multiple ways to solve this problem. One way is already described in the question Automator variable in shell script (make sure to enable the options precisely as follows):

Ask for Finder Items (Type: Folders)
Set Value of Variable (Variable [example]: Directory-Path)
Ask for Text (Checked: Ignore this action's input; Checked: Require an answer)
Set Value of Variable (Variable [example]: Spotify-Url)
Get Value of Variable (Variable: Directory-Path; Checked: Ignore this action's input)
Get Value of Variable (Variable: Spotify-Url)
Run Shell Script (Pass input: as arguments; Content: export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH ; /path/to/spotify-ripper user.name "$1" "$2"—change the "/path/to" part with the real path to spotify-ripper, of course: probably /usr/local/bin/spotify-ripper)

Another way is to use AppleScript, either in a "Run AppleScript" action in Automator or as an AppleScript application saved in AppleScript Editor. Here's an example in AppleScript:

on run
    try
        set spotifyDialog to display dialog "Enter a Spotify URL:" buttons {"Cancel", "OK"} default button "OK" cancel button "Cancel" default answer "https://" with title "Spotify Ripper"
        if the button returned of spotifyDialog is "OK" then
            set spotifyURL to text returned of spotifyDialog
            choose folder with prompt "Choose a folder:"
            set theDirectory to the result
            do shell script "export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH ; /path/to/spotify-ripper user.name " & quoted form of POSIX path of theDirectory & space & spotifyURL
        end if
    end try
end run

Best Answer

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Adding variables to a shell command in Automator

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