Whenever I turn on my computer after updating to MacOS Sonoma, I see two pop-ups: The “USBserver” would like to access data from other apps. Don’t allow/Allow. “NETserver” would like to access data from other apps. Don’t allow/Allow.
I’m not sure which system app is causing this and why. Do you know how to stop these annoying pop-ups from appearing every time I log in? Should I click Allow or Don’t allow? I appreciate any insights that you could provide.
Quite a lot of people discuss the macOS prompt “ would like to access data from other apps” after upgrading to macOS Sonoma in various forums, and this message also occurs in the latest macOS Sequoia.
Mac users have also encountered this "app would like to access data from other apps " with other applications, such as:
- “Dropbox.app” would like to access data from other apps.
- “Zoom.app” would like to access data from other apps.
- “VSCode.app” would like to access data from other apps.
- “Parallels Desktop.app” would like to access data from other apps.
- “Pulsar.app” would like to access data from other apps.
- …
It seems that this prompt is not exclusive to certain apps, some Mac users tried to update the app and reinstall the app on Mac, but the error still pops up. Besides, it may not be a system bug given that someone reinstalled macOS and still received this message on the Mac screen.
This is a privacy feature included in macOS Sonoma and later. if an application that isn’t supposed to or doesn’t have permission attempts to access data from a folder(this can be one of the open folders in your workspace), then it triggers this pop-up to ask for permission. Furthermore, you will also see this prompt each time you open the application if the folder is still being accessed because the allow permission is only active for the instance of the application. This explains why people keep receiving the “app would like to access data from other apps” message.
The prompt message indicates the current operation needs to access data from other apps so that it can be completed. Therefore, if you click Don’t allow, you can continue to the action, and if click Allow, it only works for this time and may appear again when you perform the same actions within the app on Mac.
There is a way out, that is to give Full Disk Access to the app that
requests access to other apps’ data. If you mind granting the app full disk access privilege, you can turn it off after you complete the task, otherwise, you may receive this annoying prompt frequently while you using the app and need to access other apps’ data.
Here’s how to allow Full Disk Access to the app on Mac:
- Open the Apple menu and choose System Settings.
- Select Privacy & Security from the left sidebar.
- Then choose Full Disk Access on the right pane.
- If the app that asks for accessing data from other apps is listed there, toggle on the button next to it to enable Full Disk Access.
- If you can’t see it there, click the + button at the bottom of the box, enter your password if asked, select the app from Applications, and click Open, then choose Quit&Reopen on the pop-up.
A notification explaining the purpose and the data that the app is attempting to access would be helpful so that I can decide whether to enable it or keep it disabled. The breadth of access should be restricted to what is necessary. The desired rights should ideally be explained, as well (access to the Documents and Downloads folders, for example, is self-explanatory).
Giving full disk access was the only solution I could find, so I followed. Although I dislike giving complete permission, there was no other option. All in all, it appears to be a “thing” exclusive to macOS, but it also seems like something that individual program developers must deal with to comply with the most recent security policies.