Using Droplets in macOS 15 Sequoia or later

A Better Finder Attributes has supported droplets for a very long time and there are many people relying on them.

Unfortunately, the idea of an independent, user-created, application running on macOS sits very uncomfortably with Apple’s push to enforce the strictest security on macOS and to privilege its own App Store over third party stores, and droplets have subsequently become less and less straightforward to use.

First they had to be eliminated from the Mac App Store products, because of the code signing requirements and “App Review”.

Under macOS 13 Ventura, newly created droplets have started appearing as “damaged” and have required the following “trick” to launch:

1. find the droplet in the Finder
2. hold down the Control key on your keyboard and click on its icon
3. choose Open

Clicking through the warning dialog would then start it properly.

You can find the entire procedure in the video tutorial at:

• Droplets in macOS 13 Ventura & later

As of macOS 15 Sequoia this no longer works and brings up a dialog that says {Your Droplet Name} is damaged and can't be opened. You should move it to the Bin. (This file was downloaded on an unknown date.).

In order to override this, you now need to take a trip to the Settings app for each droplet:

1. first double-click your droplet, and dismiss the Damaged… dialog
2. open Settings app (e.g. Apple Menu ⇒ System Settings…)
3. go to Privacy & Security
4. scroll down towards the bottom until you find the {Your Droplet Name} wwas blocked to protect your Mac. entry
5. click on the Open Anyway
6. select Open
7. enter your credentials

If you find any of this frightening or off-putting.. well that is the point. If you want to see a full discussion of the actual security implications, this is covered in detail in the video above.

Using Presets as an Alternative to Droplets

I would also like to point out that the presets feature offers an alternative for droplets for many common tasks.

You can learn more about Presets in this help book, or in the video linked below:

• Introducing Presets (3m 48s)

If you do require droplets, or just prefer using them to presets, I’m afraid you will have to put up with the added “security” shenanigans; there is nothing that I or any third party developer can do about this.

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