Note: This chapter describes property list keys specific to the macOS implementation of App Sandbox. They are not available in iOS.
Absolute and relative paths Absolute, or full, path. An absolute, or full, path begins with a drive letter followed by a colon, such as D. A relative path refers to a location that is relative to a current directory. Relative paths make use of two special symbols, a dot (.) and a double-dot (.), which translate into the current. Mac Add To Path. File path formats on Windows systems.; 15 minutes to read +6; In this article. Members of many of the types in the System.IO namespace include a path parameter that lets you specify an absolute or relative path to a file system resource. This path is then passed to Windows file system APIs.This topic discusses the formats for file paths that you can use on Windows systems.
A temporary exception entitlement permits your macOS app to perform certain operations otherwise disallowed by App Sandbox.
If you need to request a temporary exception entitlement, use Apple’s bug reporting system to let Apple know what’s not working for you. Apple considers feature requests as it develops the macOS platform.
Note: If you request a temporary-exception entitlement, be sure to follow the guidance regarding entitlements provided on the App Store Connect website. In particular, identify the entitlement and corresponding issue number in the App Sandbox Entitlement Usage Information section in App Store Connect and explain why your app needs the exception.
To request a temporary exception entitlement for a target in an macOS Xcode project, add it to the target’s .entitlements
property list file using the Xcode property list editor.
The value to provide for any temporary exception entitlement is a string or an array of one or more strings. For more information on using temporary exceptions in macOS, refer to Designing for App Sandbox in App Sandbox Design Guide.
Apple Event Temporary Exception
When you adopt App Sandbox, your app retains the ability to:
Receive Apple events
Send Apple events to itself
Respond to Apple events it receives
However, with App Sandbox you cannot send Apple events to other apps unless you configure a scripting-targets
entitlement or an apple-events
temporary exception entitlement.
The scripting-targets
entitlement is the preferred way to request the ability to send Apple events to apps that provide scripting access groups, as described in App Sandbox Entitlement Keys.
When an app you are scripting does not provide scripting access groups, use the apple-events
temporary exception entitlement instead. This entitlement contains an array of strings, each of which should contain the bundle identifier of an app to which you want to send Apple events. For example, to enable sending Apple events to iPhoto from your app, you can pass an array containing a single string whose value is com.apple.iphoto
.
The scripting-targets
and apple-events
entitlements are not mutually exclusive, even for a single target app. For example, if your app has a minimum OS version earlier than 10.8, when scripting-targets
was introduced, and your app scripts the Apple Mail app to compose messages, you continue using the temporary entitlement (modified to include the suffix :before:10.8
), while also including the scripting-targets
entitlement for 10.8 and later compatibility, as show below:
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.apple-events
Enables sending of Apple events to one or more destination apps.
Audio Unit Hosting Temporary Exception
By default, sandboxed apps load only audio unit plugins that declare themselves to be safe for use in a sandbox. With this temporary exception, the user is instead asked for permission when the app attempts to load an unsafe (or undeclared) plugin.

com.apple.security.temporary-exception.audio-unit-host
Enables hosting of audio components that are not designated as sandbox-safe. See Audio Components and the Application Sandbox for details.
Global Mach Service Temporary Exception
With App Sandbox, lookup of global Mach services fails unless you configure the mach-lookup.global.name
temporary exception entitlement. For each service that you want to enable, add the service as a string value for this entitlement key’s value array.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.mach-lookup.global-name
Enables lookup of one or more global Mach services.
Global Mach Service Dynamic Registration Temporary Exception
With App Sandbox, dynamic registration of global Mach services fails unless you configure the mach-register.global-name
temporary exception entitlement. For each service that you want to enable, add the service as a string value for this entitlement key’s value array.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.mach-register.global-name
Enables dynamic registration of one or more global Mach services.
File Access Temporary Exceptions
With App Sandbox, your app has access only to its container, to its application group containers, to locations that are POSIX world-readable, and to locations in the file system that the user indicates direct intent to use, such as by interacting with an Open or Save dialog. If your app needs permanent access to other locations, you can bring additional locations into your sandbox by enabling the temporary exception entitlement keys described here.
For each path that you want to enable access to, specify the path as a string value for the appropriate entitlement key’s value array. Each string must start with a slash (/
) character—whether it represents an absolute path or a path relative to the user’s home directory. If a path you provide specifies a directory rather a file, you must end the path with a slash character.
For a
home-relative-path
temporary exception, provide a path relative to the user’s home directory; that is, relative to~
For an
absolute-path
temporary exception, provide an absolute path; that is, relative to/
Do not use a read/write entitlement when a read-only entitlement will do.
Important: Do not use either of these temporary exception entitlements (home-relative-path
or absolute-path
) to obtain access to a shared preference file. Instead, use a shared-preference
temporary exception entitlement, as described in Shared Preference Domain Temporary Exceptions.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.home-relative-path.read-only
Enables read-only access to the specified files or subdirectories in the user’s home directory.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.home-relative-path.read-write
Enables read/write access to the specified files or subdirectories in the user’s home directory.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.absolute-path.read-only
Enables read-only access to the specified files or directories at specified absolute paths.
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com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.absolute-path.read-write
Enables read/write access to the specified files or directories at specified absolute paths.
IOKit User Client Class Temporary Exception
If you need to grant the ability to interact with other subclasses of IOUserClient
, use the following entitlement.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.iokit-user-client-class
Ability to specify additional IOUserClient
subclasses to open or to set properties on.
Shared Preference Domain Temporary Exceptions
If your app needs read-only or read/write access to a shared preference domain, use the following entitlements. Do not use a read/write entitlement when a read-only entitlement will do.
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.shared-preference.read-only
Enables read-only access to the contents of the specified preference domain or domains in the user’s home directory.
How To Find Absolute Path For Mac Applications
com.apple.security.temporary-exception.shared-preference.read-write
Enables read/write access to the contents of the specified preference domain or domains in the user’s home directory.
How To Find Absolute Path For Mac App Store
How To Find Absolute Path For Mac Apps
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