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Catalina: Allow apps to control other apps: Empty list

...and no + button to add apps manually.


Just did a clean install of Catalina 10.15.7 on a 2014 Mac Mini. How does one go about using this feature?


Thanks,

DM


Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Apr 2, 2021 1:28 PM

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Posted on Apr 2, 2021 8:33 PM

For some of the items in this System Preference pane, there is no + option to manually add an application. Automation is one of those. When you first open an application that can be used in this way, there will be a request for you to enable it and then you will see it listed in this System Preference pane with an option you can select (check box) to allow it to control other applications.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Apr 2, 2021 8:33 PM in response to Doctormelodious

For some of the items in this System Preference pane, there is no + option to manually add an application. Automation is one of those. When you first open an application that can be used in this way, there will be a request for you to enable it and then you will see it listed in this System Preference pane with an option you can select (check box) to allow it to control other applications.

Apr 2, 2021 8:50 PM in response to steve626

Thanks. I was trying to use an AppleScript script I had saved as an app, but in Catalina I got this error:


Not authorized to send Apple events to Finder.


I was thinking it might be something I could get the OS to allow, but that Prefs pane obviously wasn't the place to do it. Have I any other recourse? Or does Catalina regard an AppleScript applet as too old school to even bother with? (I can still run the script from within the Script Editor app; just not as its own app.)


Thanks again.

Apr 2, 2021 9:08 PM in response to Doctormelodious

I believe that for this to work as an app, the MacOS requires the app to use specific Apple-provided developer tools to initiate the change to the Security and Privacy Preference Pane, and without that being implemented properly, it won't let the app control the finder. After all, an app could be downloaded from almost anywhere and thus do harm. Apple probably considers a script that you create more like you simply doing things inside the finder (or in terminal) in person, so its' allowed.


I am not knowledgable enough about AppleScript to know how to do it, but there might be some commands you can include that do set up Security and Privacy the way you want.

Catalina: Allow apps to control other apps: Empty list

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