MacOS – what does installd do in privacy setting

accessibilitymacosSecurity

there is a installd icon in the setting->accessibility->privacy. it can be seen in the screenshot enter image description here

Any ideas what it is for?

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I've had this question as well and finally went digging. This information is stored in the OS X Privacy database. This db can be accessed with the command-line tool tccutil, but the only ("supported") option is reset. That is of course not very useful here. I found someone at this page who wrote a short python utility to edit this database. Examining the code, the db is located at /Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db (you will need sudo access for this). It is a SQLite db. There are entries in there for /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/PackageKit.framework/Resources/installd which is almost certainly the installd referenced in the preference pane. This is the daemon which occasionally checks for software updates. Since it is Apple code, I am inclined to trust it.

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MacOS – What does Security & Privacy/Accessibility enable

In essence, the 'assistive devices' feature gives apps the ability to control other apps. It was intended to give assistive applications the ability to read the screen and process information for other methods of interaction, such as VoiceOver or braille readers. However, other apps use the same feature to 'plug in' to other apps.

For example, Steam uses this feature to provide the Steam Overlay on top of games. Apps requiring AppleScript integration also require this feature, as well as apps that want the ability to press buttons in other apps. This would allow assistive apps to press buttons in apps per voice commands or other input, however it could also potentially allow apps to press buttons without your consent.

It doesn't give apps any more access to your data than the app would already have, however there's nothing stopping it from giving itself access to your data by clicking the relevant buttons in the GUI (i.e. opening Get Info and adjusting the file permissions). Despite all this, it would still require that you enter your password.

In conclusion, it simply allows apps to press buttons in other apps and read data from other apps.

MacOS – Apps Stuck in Security & Privacy > Accessibility

Within Terminal you can run the following command to see the current entries in your system.

sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/Tcc.db 'select * from access'

And then this command to remove an entry you don't want any longer.

sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/Tcc.db 'delete from access where client like "%YOURAPPNAMEHERE%"'

So, for example, I ran the following command which removed Automator from the list.

sudo sqlite3 /Library/Application\ Support/com.apple.TCC/Tcc.db 'delete from access where client like "%Automator%"'

And just to give credit where credit is due, I found the solution on Apple's discussion forums here.

Another option to find a list of applications which have requested Accessibility access is the following command. This will give you the list of application which have been allowed and the ones that haven't.

defaults read com.apple.universalaccessAuthWarning

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MacOS – What does Security & Privacy/Accessibility enable

MacOS – Apps Stuck in Security & Privacy > Accessibility

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