Applications Security Permission – Fix ‘You Do Not Have Permission to Open the Application’ Error

applicationsbig surpermissionSecurity

This seems to be a new issue with Big Sur.

I have "App Store and identified developers" enabled in Security & Privacy, but I've run into a certain app outside the App Store that seems like it doesn't fall under the category of "identified developers".

When I try to open the app, it tells me "You do not have permission to open the application". Going into Terminal, however, I can see executable permissions are enabled for the app, just like for every other app.

What can I do to be able to open the app?

Best Answer

In playing with the Triangulator app I found the following issues on Big Sur:

  1. When decompressing the .zip, the application contents didn't retain the execute bits. Add it back with sudo chmod -R 755 /path/to/app.
  2. Since the application was downloaded by a web browser (in my case) the quarantine bits are set on the decompressed files. Remove that with sudo xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /path/to/app.

Once those issues are remediated then the application can be launched.

-Eric

Related Question