You can now easily request access to managed capabilities for your App IDs directly from the new Capability Requests tab in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles > Identifiers. With this update, view available capabilities in one convenient location, check the status of your requested capabilities, and see any notes from Apple related to your requests. Learn more about capability requests.

General: Forums topic: Code Signing Forums subtopics: Code Signing > General, Code Signing > Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, Code Signing > Notarization, Code Signing > Entitlements Forums tags: Code Signing, Signing Certificates, Provisioning Profiles, Entitlements Developer Account Help — This document is good in general but, in particular, the Reference section is chock-full of useful information, including the names and purposes of all certificate types issued by Apple Developer web site, tables of which capabilities are supported by which distribution models on iOS and macOS, and information on how to use managed capabilities. Developer > Support > Certificates covers some important policy issues Bundle Resources > Entitlements documentation TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles — This includes links to the other technotes in the Inside Code Signing series. WWDC 2021 Session 10204 Distribute apps in Xcode with cloud signing Certificate Signing Requests Explained forums post --deep Considered Harmful forums post Don’t Run App Store Distribution-Signed Code forums post Resolving errSecInternalComponent errors during code signing forums post Finding a Capability’s Distribution Restrictions forums post Signing code with a hardware-based code-signing identity forums post New Capabilities Request Tab in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles forums post Isolating Code Signing Problems from Build Problems forums post Investigating Third-Party IDE Code-Signing Problems forums post Determining if an entitlement is real forums post Mac code signing: Forums tag: Developer ID Creating distribution-signed code for macOS documentation Packaging Mac software for distribution documentation Placing Content in a Bundle documentation Embedding nonstandard code structures in a bundle documentation Embedding a command-line tool in a sandboxed app documentation Signing a daemon with a restricted entitlement documentation Defining launch environment and library constraints documentation WWDC 2023 Session 10266 Protect your Mac app with environment constraints TN2206 macOS Code Signing In Depth archived technote — This doc has mostly been replaced by the other resources linked to here but it still contains a few unique tidbits and it’s a great historical reference. Manual Code Signing Example forums post The Care and Feeding of Developer ID forums post TestFlight, Provisioning Profiles, and the Mac App Store forums post For problems with notarisation, see Notarisation Resources. For problems with the trusted execution system, including Gatekeeper, see Trusted Execution Resources. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

I am distributing a macOS application outside the App Store using Developer ID and need to provide provisioning profiles to customers for installation during the package installation process. I have two questions: How can I package and provide the provisioning profile(s) so that the customer can install them easily during the application installation process? Are there any best practices or tools that could simplify this step? In my case, there are multiple provisioning profiles. Should I instruct the customer to install each profile individually, or is there a way to combine them and have them installed all at once? Any guidance on the best practices for this process would be greatly appreciated.

急需一个企业开发者证书，有意者可联系tg:@moonkf2025

Hello, I went through the verification process to get the Tap to Pay on iPhone entitlement, and after a couple of corrections I was finally assured that I was granted the entitlement for production use. However, in App Store Connect, I can only see "Development" for "Provisioning Support" of the entitlement, and I'm not able to publish the app to Testflight because the profile doesn't support the entitlement (I'm using automatic code signing with XCode). Where is this going wrong? The Tap to Pay support assured me they granted the right entitlement and pointed me to the developer support. Thank you, Johannes

I tried to create a new IOS provisioning profile and re-apply it to the app using Xcode to build it, but I got into trouble. The build is good, but it bounces when running the app. I would appreciate it if you could let me know what to do.

Hi Everyone, Just a quick, and what is probably a really simple question. Do I require a 'Paid' Apple Developer account if I just wish to notarise my application for use on my local network. I don't see myself needing to use the App Store in the near future. I know I can manually add the app and authorise it, but I'd like to avoid this. Kindly Ryn

IMPORTANT The underlying issue here (FB8830007) was fixed in macOS 11.3, so the advice in this post is irrelevant if you’re building on that release or later. Note This content is a repost of info from another thread because that thread is not world readable (it’s tied to the DTK programme). A number of folks have reported problems where: They have a product that supports older versions of macOS (anything prior to 10.11). If they build their product on Intel, everything works. If they build their product on Apple Silicon, it fails on those older versions of macOS. A developer filed a bug about this (FB8830007) and, based on the diagnosis of that bug, I have some info to share as to what’s going wrong and how you can prevent it. Let’s start with some background. macOS’s code signing architecture supports two different hash formats: sha1, the original hash format, which is now deprecated sha256, the new format, support for which was added in macOS 10.11 codesign should choose the signing format based on the deployment target: If your deployment target is 10.11 or later, you get sha256. If your deployment target is earlier, you get both sha1 and sha256. This problem crops up because, when building for both Intel and Apple Silicon, your deployment targets are different. You might set the deployment target to 10.9 but, on Apple Silicon, that’s raised to the minimum Apple Silicon system, 11.0. So, which deployment target does it choose? Well, the full answer to that is complex but the executive summary is that it chooses the deployment target of the current architecture, that is, Intel if you’re building on Intel and Apple Silicon if you’re building on Apple Silicon. For example: intel% codesign -d --arch x86_64 -vvv Test664892.app … Hash choices=sha1,sha256 … intel% codesign -d --arch arm64 -vvv Test664892.app … Hash choices=sha1,sha256 … arm% codesign -d --arch x86_64 -vvv Test664892.app … Hash choices=sha256 … arm% codesign -d --arch arm64 -vvv Test664892.app … Hash choices=sha256 … The upshot is that you have problems if your deployment target is less than 10.11 and you sign on Apple Silicon. When you run on, say, macOS 10.10, the system looks for a sha1 hash, doesn’t find it, and complains. The workaround is to supply the --digest-algorithm=sha1,sha256, which overrides the hash choice logic in codesign and causes it to include both hashes: arm% codesign -s - --digest-algorithm=sha1,sha256 Test664892.app arm% codesign -d --arch x86_64 -vvv Test664892.app … Hash choices=sha1,sha256 … % codesign -d --arch arm64 -vvv Test664892.app … Hash choices=sha1,sha256 … Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

We've been trying to get the CarPlay Navigation Entitlement for a couple years now without much luck. Did you have a similar experience? How did you succeed getting the entitlement? Part of the form requires us to submit Screenshots. Did you provide screenshots of your on-device experience or wireframe for CarPlay? How was your experience?

The product archive package's signature is invalid. Ensure that it is signed with your "3rd Party Mac Developer Installer" certificate. (90237) I'm receiving this error, despite the fact that I'm using this certificate when creating the pkg (with electron-forge) My configuration is shown below - note the 3rd Party Mac Developer Installer identity when using new MakerPKG. const config: ForgeConfig = { packagerConfig: { asar: true, name: 'Deep Focus', icon: 'resources/icon.icns', osxSign: { identity: 'Apple Distribution: Timeo Williams (3Y4F3KTSJA)', type: 'distribution', provisioningProfile: '/Users/timeo/Desktop/Deep Focus/deepWork/distribution.provisionprofile', preAutoEntitlements: false, // eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/explicit-function-return-type optionsForFile() { return { entitlements: 'build/entitlements.mas.plist' } } }, extendInfo: 'build/info.plist', osxUniversal: { mergeASARs: true }, appCategoryType: 'public.app-category.productivity', appBundleId: 'com.electron.deepfocus', extraResource: [ 'resources/.env', 'resources/icon.icns', ] }, rebuildConfig: {}, makers: [ new MakerSquirrel({}), new MakerZIP({}), new MakerRpm({}), new MakerDeb({}), new MakerDMG({ appPath: './out/Deep Focus-darwin-arm64/Deep Focus.app', name: 'Deep Focus', icon: './resources/icon.icns', format: 'ULFO', overwrite: true, contents: (opts) => [ { x: 130, y: 220, type: 'file', path: opts.appPath }, { x: 410, y: 220, type: 'link', path: '/Applications' } ] }), new MakerPKG({ name: 'Deep Focus', identity: '3rd Party Mac Developer Installer: Timeo Williams (3Y4F3KTSJA)' }) ], plugins: [ new VitePlugin({ build: [ { entry: 'src/main.ts', config: 'vite.main.config.ts', target: 'main' }, { entry: 'src/preload.ts', config: 'vite.preload.config.ts', target: 'preload' } ], renderer: [ { name: 'main_window', config: 'vite.renderer.config.mts' // Path to Vite config for renderer process } ] }), new FusesPlugin({ version: FuseVersion.V1, [FuseV1Options.RunAsNode]: false, [FuseV1Options.EnableCookieEncryption]: true, [FuseV1Options.EnableNodeOptionsEnvironmentVariable]: false, [FuseV1Options.EnableNodeCliInspectArguments]: false, [FuseV1Options.EnableEmbeddedAsarIntegrityValidation]: true, [FuseV1Options.OnlyLoadAppFromAsar]: true }) ] } Yet, I'm getting the error from Transporter that it's invalid?

This issue keeps cropping up on the forums and so I decided to write up a single post with all the details. If you have questions or comments: If you were referred here from an existing thread, reply on that thread. If not, feel free to start a new thread. Use whatever topic and subtopic is appropriate for your question, but also add the Entitlements tag so that I see it. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Determining if an entitlement is real In recent months there’s been a spate of forums threads involving ‘hallucinated’ entitlements. This typically pans out as follows: The developer, or an agent working on behalf of the developer, changes their .entitlements file to claim an entitlement that’s not real. That is, the entitlement key is a value that is not, and never has been, supported in any way. Xcode’s code signing machinery tries to find or create a provisioning profile to authorise this claim. That’s impossible, because the entitlement isn’t a real entitlement. Xcode reports this as a code signing error. The developer misinterprets that error [1] in one of two ways: As a generic Xcode code signing failure, and so they start a forums thread asking about how to fix that problem. As an indication that the entitlement is managed — that is, requires authorisation from Apple to use — and so they start a forums thread asking how to request such authorisation. The fundamental problem is step 1. Once you start claiming entitlements that aren’t real, you’re on a path to confusion. Note If you’re curious about how provisioning profiles authorise entitlement claims, read TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles. There are a couple of ways to check whether an entitlement is real. My preferred option is to create a new test project and use Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor to add the corresponding capability to it. Then look at what Xcode did. You might find that Xcode claimed a different entitlement, or added an Info.plist key, or did nothing at all. IMPORTANT If you can’t find the correct capability in the Signing & Capabilities editor, it’s likely that this feature is available to all apps, that is, it’s not gated by an entitlement or anything else. Another thing you can do is search the documentation. The vast majority of real entitlements are documented in Bundle Resources > Entitlements. IMPORTANT When you search for documentation, focus on the Apple documentation. If, for example, you search the Apple Developer Forums, you might be mislead by other folks who are similarly confused. If you find that you’re mistakenly trying to claim a hallucinated entitlement, the fix is trivial: Remove it from your .entitlements file so that your app starts to build again. Then add the capability using Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor. This will do the right thing. If you continue to have problems, feel free to ask for help here on the forums. See the top of this post for advice on how to do that. [1] Xcode 26.2, currently being seeded as Release Candidate, is much better about this (r. 155327166). Give it a whirl! Commonly Hallucinated Entitlements This section lists some of the more commonly hallucinated entitlements: com.apple.developer.push-notifications — The correct entitlement is aps-environment (com.apple.developer.aps-environment on macOS), documented here. There’s also the remote-notification value in the UIBackgroundModes property. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase — There’s no entitlement for in-app purchase. Rather, in-app purchase is available to all apps with an explicit App ID (as opposed to a wildcard App ID). com.apple.InAppPurchase — Likewise. com.apple.developer.storekit — Likewise. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase.non-consumable — Likewise. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase.subscription — Likewise. com.apple.developer.app-groups — The correct entitlement is com.apple.security.application-groups, documented here. And if you’re working on the Mac, see App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony. com.apple.developer.background-modes — Background modes are controlled by the UIBackgroundModes key in your Info.plist, documented here. UIBackgroundModes — See the previous point. com.apple.developer.voip-push-notification — There’s no entitlement for this. VoIP is gated by the voip value in the UIBackgroundModes property. com.apple.developer.family-controls.user-authorization — The correct entitlement is com.apple.developer.family-controls, documented here. IMPORTANT As explained in the docs, this entitlement is available to all developers during development but you must request authorisation for distribution. com.apple.developer.device-activity — The DeviceActivity framework has the same restrictions as Family Controls. com.apple.developer.managed-settings — If you’re trying to use the ManagedSettings framework, that has the same restrictions as Family Controls. If you’re trying to use the ManagedApp framework, that’s not gated by an entitlement. com.apple.developer.callkit.call-directory — There’s no entitlement for the Call Directory app extension feature. com.apple.developer.nearby-interaction — There’s no entitlement for the Nearby interaction framework. com.apple.developer.secure-enclave — On iOS and its child platforms, there’s no entitlement required to use the Secure Enclave. For macOS specifically, any program that has access to the data protection keychain also has access to the Secure Enclave [1]. See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about the data protection keychain. com.apple.developer.networking.configuration — If you’re trying to configure the Wi-Fi network on iOS, the correct entitlement is com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotConfiguration, documented here. com.apple.developer.musickit — There is no MusicKit capability. Rather, enable MusicKit via the App Services column in the App ID editor, accessible from Developer > Certificates, Identifiers, and Profiles > Identifiers. com.apple.mail.extension — Creating an app extension based on the MailKit framework does not require any specific entitlement. com.apple.security.accessibility — There’s no entitlement that gates access to the Accessibility APIs on macOS. Rather, this is controlled by the user in System Settings > Privacy & Security. Note that sandboxed apps can’t use these APIs. See the Review functionality that is incompatible with App Sandbox section of Protecting user data with App Sandbox. com.apple.developer.adservices — Using the AdServices framework does not require any specific entitlement. [1] While technically these are different features, they are closely associated and it turns out that, if you have access to the data protection keychain, you also have access to the SE. Revision History 2025-12-09 Updated the Xcode footnote to mention the improvements in Xcode 26.2rc. 2025-11-03 Added com.apple.developer.adservices to the common hallucinations list. 2025-10-30 Added com.apple.security.accessibility to the common hallucinations list. 2025-10-22 Added com.apple.mail.extension to the common hallucinations list. Also added two new in-app purchase hallucinations. 2025-09-26 Added com.apple.developer.musickit to the common hallucinations list. 2025-09-22 Added com.apple.developer.storekit to the common hallucinations list. 2025-09-05 Added com.apple.developer.device-activity to the common hallucinations list. 2025-09-02 First posted.

I have 14 total devices, from way back. I am currently in a financial bind and can't renew just yet. BUT I am at past my time to reset the device list back to zero. But the screen to do that is behind the paid account. Catch 22 Can we fix it? As it stands I must email tech support, but this is a bug so I posted

The notary service requires that all Mach-O images be linked against the macOS 10.9 SDK or later. This isn’t an arbitrary limitation. The hardened runtime, another notarisation requirement, relies on code signing features that were introduced along with macOS 10.9 and it uses the SDK version to check for their presence. Specifically, it checks the SDK version using the sdk field in the LC_BUILD_VERSION Mach-O load command (or the older LC_VERSION_MIN_MACOSX command). There are three common symptoms of this problem: When notarising your product, the notary service rejects a Mach-O image with the error The binary uses an SDK older than the 10.9 SDK. When loading a dynamic library, the system fails with the error mapped file has no cdhash, completely unsigned?. When displaying the code signature of a library, codesign prints this warning: % codesign -d vvv /path/to/your.dylib … Library validation warning=OS X SDK version before 10.9 does not support Library Validation … If you see any of these errors, read on… The best way to avoid this problem is to rebuild your code with modern tools. However, in some cases that’s not possible. Imagine if your app relies on the closed source libDodo.dylib library. That library’s vendor went out of business 10 years ago, and so the library hasn’t been updated since then. Indeed, the library was linked against the macOS 10.6 SDK. What can you do? The first thing to do is come up with a medium-term plan for breaking your dependency on libDodo.dylib. Relying on an unmaintained library is not something that’s sustainable in the long term. The history of the Mac is one of architecture transitions — 68K to PowerPC to Intel, 32- to 64-bit, and so on — and this unmaintained library will make it much harder to deal with the next transition. IMPORTANT I wrote the above prior to the announcement of the latest Apple architecture transition, Apple silicon. When you update your product to a universal binary, you might as well fix this problem on the Intel side as well. Do not delay that any further: While Apple silicon Macs are currently able to run Intel code using Rosetta 2, that’s not something you want to rely on in the long term. Heed this advice from About the Rosetta Translation Environment: Rosetta is meant to ease the transition to Apple silicon, giving you time to create a universal binary for your app. It is not a substitute for creating a native version of your app. But what about the short term? Historically I wasn’t able to offer any help on that front, but this has changed recently. Xcode 11 ships with a command-line tool, vtool, that can change the LC_BUILD_VERSION and LC_VERSION_MIN_MACOSX commands in a Mach-O. You can use this to change the sdk field of these commands, and thus make your Mach-O image ‘compatible’ with notarisation and the hardened runtime. Before doing this, consider these caveats: Any given Mach-O image has only a limited amount of space for load commands. When you use vtool to set or modify the SDK version, the Mach-O could run out of load command space. The tool will fail cleanly in this case but, if it that happens, this technique simply won’t work. Changing a Mach-O image’s load commands will break the seal on its code signature. If the image is signed, remove the signature before doing that. To do this run codesign with the --remove-signature argument. You must then re-sign the library as part of your normal development and distribution process. Remember that a Mach-O image might contain multiple architectures. All of the tools discussed here have an option to work with a specific architecture (usually -arch or --architecture). Keep in mind, however, that macOS 10.7 and later do not run on 32-bit Macs, so if your deployment target is 10.7 or later then it’s safe to drop any 32-bit code. If you’re dealing with a Mach-O image that includes 32-bit Intel code, or indeed PowerPC code, make your life simpler by removing it from the image. Use lipo for this; see its man page for details. It’s possible that changing a Mach-O image’s SDK version could break something. Indeed, many system components use the main executable’s SDK version as part of their backwards compatibility story. If you change a main executable’s SDK version, you might run into hard-to-debug compatibility problems. Test such a change extensively. It’s also possible, but much less likely, that changing the SDK version of a non-main executable Mach-O image might break something. Again, this is something you should test extensively. This list of caveats should make it clear that this is a technique of last resort. I strongly recommend that you build your code with modern tools, and work with your vendors to ensure that they do the same. Only use this technique as part of a short-term compatibility measure while you implement a proper solution in the medium term. For more details on vtool, read its man page. Also familiarise yourself with otool, and specifically the -l option which dumps a Mach-O image’s load commands. Read its man page for details. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Revision history: 2025-04-03 — Added a discussion of common symptoms. Made other minor editorial changes. 2022-05-09 — Updated with a note about Apple silicon. 2020-09-11 — First posted.

I help a lot of developers with macOS trusted execution problems. For example, they might have an app being blocked by Gatekeeper, or an app that crashes on launch with a code signing error. If you encounter a problem that’s not explained here, start a new thread with the details. Put it in the Code Signing > General subtopic and tag it with relevant tags like Gatekeeper, Code Signing, and Notarization — so that I see it. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Resolving Trusted Execution Problems macOS supports three software distribution channels: The user downloads an app from the App Store. The user gets a Developer ID-signed program directly from its developer. The user builds programs locally using Apple or third-party developer tools. The trusted execution system aims to protect users from malicious code. It’s comprised of a number of different subsystems. For example, Gatekeeper strives to ensure that only trusted software runs on a user’s Mac, while XProtect is the platform’s built-in anti-malware technology. Note To learn more about these technologies, see Apple Platform Security. If you’re developing software for macOS your goal is to avoid trusted execution entanglements. You want users to install and use your product without taking any special steps. If, for example, you ship an app that’s blocked by Gatekeeper, you’re likely to lose a lot of customers, and your users’ hard-won trust. Trusted execution problems are rare with Mac App Store apps because the Mac App Store validation process tends to catch things early. This post is primarily focused on Developer ID-signed programs. Developers who use Xcode encounter fewer trusted execution problems because Xcode takes care of many code signing and packaging chores. If you’re not using Xcode, consider making the switch. If you can’t, consult the following for information on how to structure, sign, and package your code: Placing content in a bundle Embedding nonstandard code structures in a bundle Embedding a command-line tool in a sandboxed app Creating distribution-signed code for macOS Packaging Mac software for distribution Gatekeeper Basics User-level apps on macOS implement a quarantine system for new downloads. For example, if Safari downloads a zip archive, it quarantines that archive. This involves setting the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute on the file. Note The com.apple.quarantine extended attribute is not documented as API. If you need to add, check, or remove quarantine from a file programmatically, use the quarantinePropertiesKey property. User-level unarchiving tools preserve quarantine. To continue the above example, if you double click the quarantined zip archive in the Finder, Archive Utility will unpack the archive and quarantine the resulting files. If you launch a quarantined app, the system invokes Gatekeeper. Gatekeeper checks the app for problems. If it finds no problems, it asks the user to confirm the launch, just to be sure. If it finds a problem, it displays an alert to the user and prevents them from launching it. The exact wording of this alert varies depending on the specific problem, and from release to release of macOS, but it generally looks like the ones shown in Apple > Support > Safely open apps on your Mac. The system may run Gatekeeper at other times as well. The exact circumstances under which it runs Gatekeeper is not documented and changes over time. However, running a quarantined app always invokes Gatekeeper. Unix-y networking tools, like curl and scp, don’t quarantine the files they download. Unix-y unarchiving tools, like tar and unzip, don’t propagate quarantine to the unarchived files. Confirm the Problem Trusted execution problems can be tricky to reproduce: You may encounter false negatives, that is, you have a trusted execution problem but you don’t see it during development. You may also encounter false positives, that is, things fail on one specific Mac but otherwise work. To avoid chasing your own tail, test your product on a fresh Mac, one that’s never seen your product before. The best way to do this is using a VM, restoring to a snapshot between runs. For a concrete example of this, see Testing a Notarised Product. The most common cause of problems is a Gatekeeper alert saying that it’s blocked your product from running. However, that’s not the only possibility. Before going further, confirm that Gatekeeper is the problem by running your product without quarantine. That is, repeat the steps in Testing a Notarised Product except, in step 2, download your product in a way that doesn’t set quarantine. Then try launching your app. If that launch fails then Gatekeeper is not the problem, or it’s not the only problem! Note The easiest way to download your app to your test environment without setting quarantine is curl or scp. Alternatively, use xattr to remove the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute from the download before you unpack it. For more information about the xattr tool, see the xattr man page. Trusted execution problems come in all shapes and sizes. Later sections of this post address the most common ones. But first, let’s see if there’s an easy answer. Run a System Policy Check macOS has a syspolicy_check tool that can diagnose many common trusted execution issues. To check an app, run the distribution subcommand against it: % syspolicy_check distribution MyApp.app App passed all pre-distribution checks and is ready for distribution. If there’s a problem, the tool prints information about that problem. For example, here’s what you’ll see if you run it against an app that’s notarised but not stapled: % syspolicy_check distribution MyApp.app App has failed one or more pre-distribution checks. --------------------------------------------------------------- Notary Ticket Missing File: MyApp.app Severity: Fatal Full Error: A Notarization ticket is not stapled to this application. Type: Distribution Error … Note In reality, stapling isn’t always required, so this error isn’t really Fatal (r. 151446728 ). For more about that, see The Pros and Cons of Stapling forums. And here’s what you’ll see if there’s a problem with the app’s code signature: % syspolicy_check distribution MyApp.app App has failed one or more pre-distribution checks. --------------------------------------------------------------- Codesign Error File: MyApp.app/Contents/Resources/added.txt Severity: Fatal Full Error: File added after outer app bundle was codesigned. Type: Notary Error … The syspolicy_check isn’t perfect. There are a few issues it can’t diagnose (r. 136954554, 151446550). However, it should always be your first step because, if it does work, it’ll save you a lot of time. Note syspolicy_check was introduced in macOS 14. If you’re seeing a problem on an older system, first check your app with syspolicy_check on macOS 14 or later. If you can’t run the syspolicy_check tool, or it doesn’t report anything actionable, continue your investigation using the instructions in the following sections. App Blocked by Gatekeeper If your product is an app and it works correctly when not quarantined but is blocked by Gatekeeper when it is, you have a Gatekeeper problem. For advice on how to investigate such issues, see Resolving Gatekeeper Problems. App Can’t Be Opened Not all failures to launch are Gatekeeper errors. In some cases the app is just broken. For example: The app’s executable might be missing the x bit set in its file permissions. The app’s executable might be subtly incompatible with the current system. A classic example of this is trying to run a third-party app that contains arm64e code on systems prior to macOS 26 beta. macOS 26 beta supports arm64e apps directly. Prior to that, third-party products (except kernel extensions) were limited to arm64, except for the purposes of testing. The app’s executable might claim restricted entitlements that aren’t authorised by a provisioning profile. Or the app might have some other code signing problem. Note For more information about provisioning profiles, see TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles. In such cases the system displays an alert saying: The application “NoExec” can’t be opened. [[OK]] Note In macOS 11 this alert was: You do not have permission to open the application “NoExec”. Contact your computer or network administrator for assistance. [[OK]] which was much more confusing. A good diagnostic here is to run the app’s executable from Terminal. For example, an app with a missing x bit will fail to run like so: % NoExec.app/Contents/MacOS/NoExec zsh: permission denied: NoExec.app/Contents/MacOS/NoExec And an app with unauthorised entitlements will be killed by the trusted execution system: % OverClaim.app/Contents/MacOS/OverClaim zsh: killed OverClaim.app/Contents/MacOS/OverClaim In some cases running the executable from Terminal will reveal useful diagnostics. For example, if the app references a library that’s not available, the dynamic linker will print a helpful diagnostic: % MissingLibrary.app/Contents/MacOS/MissingLibrary dyld[88394]: Library not loaded: @rpath/CoreWaffleVarnishing.framework/Versions/A/CoreWaffleVarnishing … zsh: abort MissingLibrary.app/Contents/MacOS/MissingLibrary Code Signing Crashes on Launch A code signing crash has the following exception information: Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGKILL (Code Signature Invalid)) The most common such crash is a crash on launch. To confirm that, look at the thread backtraces: Backtrace not available For steps to debug this, see Resolving Code Signing Crashes on Launch. One common cause of this problem is running App Store distribution-signed code. Don’t do that! For details on why that’s a bad idea, see Don’t Run App Store Distribution-Signed Code. Code Signing Crashes After Launch If your program crashes due to a code signing problem after launch, you might have encountered the issue discussed in Updating Mac Software. Non-Code Signing Failures After Launch The hardened runtime enables a number of security checks within a process. Some coding techniques are incompatible with the hardened runtime. If you suspect that your code is incompatible with the hardened runtime, see Resolving Hardened Runtime Incompatibilities. App Sandbox Inheritance If you’re creating a product with the App Sandbox enabled and it crashes with a trap within _libsecinit_appsandbox, it’s likely that you’re having App Sandbox inheritance problems. For the details, see Resolving App Sandbox Inheritance Problems. Library Loading Problem Most library loading problems have an obvious cause. For example, the library might not be where you expect it, or it might be built with the wrong platform or architecture. However, some library loading problems are caused by the trusted execution system. For the details, see Resolving Library Loading Problems. Explore the System Log If none of the above resolves your issue, look in the system log for clues as to what’s gone wrong. Some good keywords to search for include: gk, for Gatekeeper xprotect syspolicy, per the syspolicyd man page cmd, for Mach-O load command oddities amfi, for Apple mobile file integrity, per the amfid man page taskgated, see its taskgated man page yara, discussed in Apple Platform Security ProvisioningProfiles You may be able to get more useful logging with this command: % sudo sysctl -w security.mac.amfi.verbose_logging=1 Here’s a log command that I often use when I’m investigating a trusted execution problem and I don’t know here to start: % log stream --predicate "sender == 'AppleMobileFileIntegrity' or sender == 'AppleSystemPolicy' or process == 'amfid' or process == 'taskgated-helper' or process == 'syspolicyd'" For general information the system log, see Your Friend the System Log. Revision History 2025-08-06 Added the Run a System Policy Check section, which talks about the syspolicy_check tool (finally!). Clarified the discussion of arm64e. Made other editorial changes. 2024-10-11 Added info about the security.mac.amfi.verbose_logging option. Updated some links to point to official documentation that replaces some older DevForums posts. 2024-01-12 Added a specific command to the Explore the System Log section. Change the syspolicy_check callout to reflect that macOS 14 is no longer in beta. Made minor editorial changes. 2023-06-14 Added a quick call-out to the new syspolicy_check tool. 2022-06-09 Added the Non-Code Signing Failures After Launch section. 2022-06-03 Added a link to Don’t Run App Store Distribution-Signed Code. Fixed the link to TN3125. 2022-05-20 First posted.

I am writing to follow up on my request for Family Control permission, which I submitted through the appropriate form over a week ago. Unfortunately, I have not yet received any response or access to the requested permissions. Could you kindly provide an update on the status of my request? If any further information or action is needed from my end, please let me know.

We notarize all of our apps as part of our nightly build. Every few weeks Apple changes something in the developer agreement, and therefore require the primary account holder to accept the new terms. However, this means our nightly builds break until the terms are accepted, which is a true pain in the ass. Is there some way to tell notarytool to force the notarization? Or tell the lawyers to chill tf out? This seems to happen every 2-4 weeks.

The mentioned way of setting up complications does not work. We can't create the identifier according to the guideline mentioned in the WWDC session. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2020/10049/?time=1021 Timestamp: 17:04 Error: An attribute in the provided entity has invalid value An App ID with Identifier '.watchkitapp.complication' is not available. Please enter a different string. To clarify - the non masked identifier is not used on another property inside our dev program. Without creating the identifier our tests result in not working push notifications. Error message while testing: discarded as application was not registered. Is the way mentioned in the WWDC session still valid? BR

I'm trying to add keychain-access-groups capability to my app for MacOs devices and I'm getting an error while signing the code. If I add this capability to an app for iOS devices, this does not happen and it works correctly. Are there any limitations to using this capability on MacOS devices? My entitlement file is the following: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key> <true/> <key>com.apple.security.application-groups</key> <array> <string>group.com.cqesolutions</string> </array> <key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only</key> <true/> <key>com.apple.security.smartcard</key> <true/> <key>keychain-access-groups</key> <array> <string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)com.cqesolutions.desktopDNIe</string> <!--<string>$(AppIdentifierPrefix)com.apple.token</string>--> <string>com.apple.token</string> </array> </dict> </plist>

This post is a ‘child’ of Resolving errSecInternalComponent errors during code signing. If you found your way here directly, I recommend that you start at the top. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Fixing an untrusted code-signing certificate If your code-signing identity is set up correctly, selecting its certificate in Keychain Access should display a green checkmark with the text “This certificate is valid”. If it does not, you need to fix that before trying to sign code. There are three common causes of an untrusted certificate: Expired Missing issuer Trust settings overrides Check for an expired certificate If your code-signing identity’s certificate has expired, Keychain Access shows a red cross with the text “… certificate is expired”. If you try to sign with it, codesign will fail like so: % codesign -s "Apple Development" -f "MyTrue" error: The specified item could not be found in the keychain. If you use security to list your code-signing identities, it will show the CSSMERR_TP_CERT_EXPIRED status: % security find-identity -p codesigning Policy: Code Signing Matching identities 1) 4E587951B705280CBB8086325CD134D4CDA04977 "Apple Development: …" (CSSMERR_TP_CERT_EXPIRED) 1 identities found Valid identities only 0 valid identities found The most likely cause of this problem is that… yep… your certificate has expired. To confirm that, select the certificate in Keychain Access and look at the Expires field. Or double click the certificate, expand the Details section, and look at the Not Valid Before and Not Valid After fields. If your code-signing identity’s certificate has expired, you’ll need to renew it. For information on how to do that, see Developer Account Help. If your certificate hasn’t expired, check that your Mac’s clock is set correctly. Check for a missing issuer In the X.509 public key infrastructure (PKI), every certificate has an issuer, who signed the certificate with their private key. These issuers form a chain of trust from the certificate to a trusted anchor. In most cases the trusted anchor is a root certificate, a certificate that’s self signed. Certificates between the leaf and the root are known as intermediate certificates, or intermediates for short. Your code-signing identity’s certificate is issued by Apple. The exact chain of trust depends on the type of certificate and the date that it was issued. For example, in 2022 Apple Development certificates are issued by the Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority — G3 intermediate, which in turn was issued by the Apple Root CA certificate authority. If there’s a missing issuer in the chain of trust between your code-signing identity’s certificate and a trusted anchor, Keychain Access shows a red cross with the text “… certificate is not trusted”. If you try to sign with it, codesign will fail like so: % codesign -s "Apple Development" -f "MyTrue" MyTrue: replacing existing signature Warning: unable to build chain to self-signed root for signer "Apple Development: …" MyTrue: errSecInternalComponent The message unable to build chain to self-signed root for signer is key. If you use security to list your identities, it will not show up in the Valid identities only list but there’s no explanation as to why: % security find-identity -p codesigning Policy: Code Signing Matching identities 1) 4E587951B705280CBB8086325CD134D4CDA04977 "Apple Development: …" 1 identities found Valid identities only 0 valid identities found IMPORTANT These symptoms can have multiple potential causes. The most common cause is a missing issuer, as discussed in this section. Another potential cause is a trust settings override, as discussed in the next section. There are steps you can take to investigate this further but, because this problem is most commonly caused by a missing intermediate, try taking a shortcut by assuming that’s the problem. If that fixes things, you’re all set. If not, you have at least ruled out this problem. Apple publishes its intermediates on the Apple PKI page. The simplest way to resolve this problem is to download all of the certificates in the Apple Intermediate Certificates list and use Keychain Access to add them to your keychain. Having extra intermediates installed is generally not a problem. If you want to apply a more targeted fix: In Keychain Access, find your code-signing identity’s certificate and double click it. If the Details section is collapsed, expand it. Look at the Issuer Name section. Note the value in the Common Name field and, if present, the Organizational Unit field. For example, for an Apple Development certificate that’s likely to be Apple Worldwide Developer Relations Certification Authority and G3, respectively. Go to the Apple PKI and download the corresponding intermediate. To continue the above example, the right intermediate is labelled Worldwide Developer Relations - G3. Use Keychain Access to add the intermediate to your keychain. Sometimes it’s not obvious which intermediate to choose in step 4. If you’re uncertain, download all the intermediates and preview each one using Quick Look in the Finder. Look in the Subject Name section for a certificate whose Common Name and Organizational Unit field matches the values from step 3. Finally, double check the chain of trust: In Keychain Access, select your code-signing identity’s certificate and choose Keychain Access > Certificate Assistant > Evaluate. In the resulting Certificate Assistant window, make sure that Generic (certificate chain validation only) is selected and click Continue. It might seem like selecting Code Signing here would make more sense. If you do that, however, things don’t work as you might expect. Specifically, in this case Certificate Assistant is smart enough to temporarily download a missing intermediate certificate in order to resolve the chain of trust, and that’ll prevent you from seeing any problems with your chain of trust. The resulting UI shows a list of certificates that form the chain of trust. The first item is your code-signing identity’s certificate and the last is an Apple root certificate. Double click the first item. Keychain Access presents the standard the certificate trust sheet, showing the chain of trust from the root to the leaf. You should expect to see three items in that list: An Apple root certificate An Apple intermediate Your code-signing identity’s certificate If so, that’s your chain of trust built correctly. Select each certificate in that list. The UI should show a green checkmark with the text “This certificate is valid”. If you see anything else, check your trust settings as described in the next section. Check for a trust settings override macOS allows you to customise trust settings. For example, you might tell the system to trust a particular certificate when verifying a signed email but not when connecting to a TLS server. The code-signing certificates issued by Apple are trusted by default. They don’t require you to customise any trust settings. Moreover, customising trust settings might cause problems. If code signing fails with the message unable to build chain to self-signed root for signer, first determine the chain of trust per the previous section then make sure that none of these certificates have customised trust settings. Specifically, for each certificate in the chain: Find the certificate in Keychain Access. Note that there may be multiple instances of the certificate in different keychains. If that’s the case, follow these steps for each copy of the certificate. Double click the certificate to open it in a window. If the Trust section is collapsed, expand it. Ensure that all the popups are set to their default values (Use System Defaults for the first, “no value specified” for the rest). If they are, move on to the next certificate. If not, set the popups to the default values and close the window. Closing the window may require authentication to save the trust settings. Another way to explore trust settings is with the dump-trust-settings subcommand of the security tool. On a stock macOS system you should see this: % security dump-trust-settings SecTrustSettingsCopyCertificates: No Trust Settings were found. % security dump-trust-settings -d SecTrustSettingsCopyCertificates: No Trust Settings were found. That is, there are no user or admin trust settings overrides. If you run these commands and see custom trust settings, investigate their origins. IMPORTANT If you’re working in a managed environment, you might see custom trust settings associated with that environment. For example, on my personal Mac I see this: % security dump-trust-settings -d Number of trusted certs = 1 Cert 2: QuinnNetCA Number of trust settings : 10 … because my home network infrastructure uses a custom certificate authority and I’ve configured my Mac to trust its root certificate (QuinnNetCA). Critically, this custom trust settings are nothing to do with code signing. If you dump trust settings and see an override you can’t explain, and specifically one related to code-signing certificate, use Keychain Access to remove it. Revision History 2025-09-29 Added information about the dump-trust-settings command to Check for a trust settings override. Made other minor editorial changes. 2022-08-10 First posted.

Hi All, Like many others I'm a little confused with gaining access to the family controls capability. Our app is ready to push to testflight, and we sent the request to apple last week. However only learning today that we need to request for the shield extension as well. I wanted to ask what the expected timeline is for being approved? I've seen posts here saying less than a week, and some people having to wait longer than 6 weeks. Any advise or guidance on getting approved smoothly & swiftly would be highly appreciated

From time to time I see folks run into error 65 when stapling a ticket to their notarised Mac software. This post explains the two common causes of that error. If you have questions or comments, start a new thread here on the forums. Put it in the Code Signing > Notarization topic area so that I see it. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Resolving Error 65 When Stapling If you directly distribute Mac software, you must sign and notarise your product so that it passes Gatekeeper. For information on how to do this, see: Notarizing macOS software before distribution, if you use Xcode Creating distribution-signed code for macOS, Packaging Mac software for distribution, and Customizing the notarization workflow otherwise The last step of that process is to staple a ticket to your notarised product. This can fail with error 65. There are two common causes of that failure: No appropriate ticket Trust issues The following sections explain how to recognise and resolve these issues. Note You are not absolutely required to staple your product. See The Pros and Cons of Stapling for more on that topic. No Appropriate Ticket Consider the following stapling error: % stapler staple "TestError65.dmg" Processing: /Users/quinn/Desktop/TestError65 2025-03-03 22-12-47/TestError65.dmg CloudKit query for TestError65.dmg (2/d812985247c75e94fd603f026991f96144a031af) failed due to "Record not found". Could not find base64 encoded ticket in response for 2/d812985247c75e94fd603f026991f96144a031af The staple and validate action failed! Error 65. Note the Record not found message. This indicates that the stapling operation failed because there’s no appropriate ticket. To investigate this, look at the notary log: % notarytool-log b53042b6-4cbb-4cef-ade4-dae034a69947 { … "status": "Accepted", … "sha256": "f012735a6d53b17082c088627da4249c9988111d17e7a90c49aa64ebc6bae22e", "ticketContents": [ { "path": "TestError65.dmg/TestError65.app", "digestAlgorithm": "SHA-256", "cdhash": "abc27b0f2daee77b9316de3c6844fbd9e234621c", "arch": "x86_64" }, { "path": "TestError65.dmg/TestError65.app", "digestAlgorithm": "SHA-256", "cdhash": "9627c72e53d44ae77513613e2ce33314bd5ef41e", "arch": "arm64" }, { "path": "TestError65.dmg/TestError65.app/Contents/MacOS/TestError65", "digestAlgorithm": "SHA-256", "cdhash": "abc27b0f2daee77b9316de3c6844fbd9e234621c", "arch": "x86_64" }, { "path": "TestError65.dmg/TestError65.app/Contents/MacOS/TestError65", "digestAlgorithm": "SHA-256", "cdhash": "9627c72e53d44ae77513613e2ce33314bd5ef41e", "arch": "arm64" }, { "path": "TestError65.dmg", "digestAlgorithm": "SHA-256", "cdhash": "01a553c91ee389764971767f5082ab8c7dcece02" } ], "issues": null } First, make sure that the status field is Accepted. If there’s some other value, the notary service didn’t generate a ticket at all! To understand why, look at the rest of the notary log for errors and warnings. Assuming that your notarisation request was successful, look through the log for cdhash values. These represent the contents of the ticket generated by the notary service. Compare that list to the cdhash values of the code being signed: % hdiutil attach "TestError65.dmg" … … /Volumes/Install TestError65 % codesign -d -vvv --arch arm64 "/Volumes/Install TestError65/TestError65.app" … CDHash=9627c72e53d44ae77513613e2ce33314bd5ef41e … % codesign -d -vvv --arch x86_64 "/Volumes/Install TestError65/TestError65.app" … CDHash=abc27b0f2daee77b9316de3c6844fbd9e234621c … Those are all present in the ticket. However, consider the cdhash of the disk image itself: % codesign -d -vvv "TestError65.dmg" … CDHash=d812985247c75e94fd603f026991f96144a031af … That’s the cdhash that stapler is looking for: CloudKit query for TestError65.dmg (2/d812985247c75e94fd603f026991f96144a031af) failed due to "Record not found". But it’s not present in the notarised ticket. Note The term cdhash stands for code directory hash. If you’re curious what that’s about, see TN3126 Inside Code Signing: Hashes and the Notarisation Fundamentals DevForums post. What happened here is: I built the app. I signed it with my Developer ID code-signing identity. I created a disk image from that app. I signed that with my Developer ID code-signing identity. I notarised that. I then re-signed the disk image. This changes the cdhash in the code signature. Now the disk image’s cdhash doesn’t match the cdhash in the ticket, so stapling fails. To resolve this problem, make sure you’re stapling exactly the file that you submitted to the notary service. One good option is to compare the SHA-256 hash of the file you’re working on with the sha256 field in the notary log. Trust Issues Now consider this stapling error: % stapler staple "TestError65.dmg" Processing: /Users/quinn/TestError65.dmg Could not validate ticket for /Users/quinn/TestError65.dmg The staple and validate action failed! Error 65. Note how it’s different from the previous one. Rather than saying that the ticket was not found, it says Could not validate ticket. So, stapler found the ticket for the file and then tried to validate it before doing the staple operation. That validation failed, and thus this error. The most common cause of this problem is folks messing around with trust settings. Consider this: % security dump-trust-settings SecTrustSettingsCopyCertificates: No Trust Settings were found. % security dump-trust-settings -d SecTrustSettingsCopyCertificates: No Trust Settings were found. Contrast it with this: % security dump-trust-settings SecTrustSettingsCopyCertificates: No Trust Settings were found. % security dump-trust-settings -d Number of trusted certs = 1 Cert 0: Apple Root CA - G3 Number of trust settings : 10 … Someone has tweaked the trust settings for the Apple Root CA - G3 anchor. In fact, I used Keychain Access to mark the certificate as Always Trust. You’d think that’d avoid problems, but you’d be wrong. Our code signing machinery expects Apple’s anchor and intermediate certificates to have the default trust settings. IMPORTANT Some trust settings overrides are fine. For example, on my main work Mac there are trust settings overrides for Apple internal anchors. This problem occurs when there are trust settings overrides for Apple’s standard anchor and intermediate certificates. To fix this: In Terminal, run the dump-trust-settings commands shown above and build a list of Apple certificates with trust settings overrides. In Keychain Access, find the first problematic certificate in your list. Note that there may be multiple instances of the certificate in different keychains. If that’s the case, follow these steps for each copy of the certificate. Double click the certificate to open it in a window. If the Trust section is collapsed, expand it. Ensure that all the popups are set to their default values (Use System Defaults for the first, “no value specified” for the rest). If they are, close the window and move on to step 8. If not, set the popups to the default values and close the window. Closing the window may require authentication to save the trust settings. Repeat steps until 2 through 7 for each of the problematic certificates you found in step 1. When you’re done, run the dump-trust-settings commands again to confirm that your changes took effect.

I regularly see folks run into problems with their Developer ID signing identities. Historically I pointed them to my posts on this thread, but I’ve decided to collect these ideas together in one place. If you have questions or comments, start a new thread here on DevForums and tag it with Developer ID so that I see it. IMPORTANT Nothing I write here on DevForums is considered official documentation. It’s just my personal ramblings based on hard-won experience. There is a bunch of official documentation that covers the topics I touch on here, including: Xcode documentation Xcode Help Developer Account Help Developer > Support > Certificates For a lot more information about code signing, see the Code Signing Resources pinned post. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" The Care and Feeding of Developer ID Most Apple signing assets are replaceable. For example, if you accidentally lose access to your Apple Development signing identity, it’s a minor inconvenience. Just use the Developer website to revoke your previous certificate and create a replacement. Or have Xcode do that for you. IMPORTANT If you don’t understand the difference between a certificate and a digital identity, and hence signing identity, read Certificate Signing Requests Explained before reading this post. Some signing assets are precious. Losing access to such assets has significant consequences. Foremost amongst those are Developer ID signing identities. These allow you to sign Mac products that ship independently. Anyone with access to your Developer ID signing identity can sign code as you. This has a number of consequences, both for you and for your relationship with Apple. Identify a Developer ID Signing Identity A Developer ID signing identity consists of two parts: the certificate and the private key. There are two different flavours, identifiable by the subject name in the certificate: Developer ID Application — This is named Developer ID Application: TTT, where TTT identifies your team. Use this to sign code and disk images. Developer ID Installer — This is named Developer ID Installer: TTT, where TTT identifies your team. Use this to sign installer packages. Note If you do KEXT development, there’s a third flavour, namely a KEXT-enabled Developer ID Application signing identity. For more details, see KEXT Code Signing Problems. This post focuses on traditional signing identities, where you manage the private key. Xcode Cloud introduced cloud signing, where signing identities are “stored securely in the cloud”. These identities have the Managed suffix in Certificates, Identifiers, and Profiles. For example, Developer ID Application Managed is the cloud signing equivalent of Developer ID Application. To learn more about cloud signing, watch WWDC 2021 Session 10204 Distribute apps in Xcode with cloud signing. To identify these certificates ‘in the wild’, see Identifying a Cloud Managed Signing Certificate. Limit Access to Developer ID Anyone with your Developer ID signing identity can sign code as you. Given that, be careful to limit access to these signing identities. This is true both for large organisations and small developers. In a large organisation, ensure that only folks authorised to ship code on behalf of your organisation have access to your Developer ID signing identities. Most organisations have some sort of release process that they use to build, test, and authorise a release. This often involves a continuous integration (CI) system. Restrict CI access to only those folks involved in the release process. Even if you’re a small developer with no formal release process, you can still take steps to restrict access to Developer ID signing identities. See Don’t Leak Your Private Key, below. In all cases, don’t use your Developer ID signing identities for day-to-day development. That’s what Apple Development signing identities are for. Create Developer ID Signing Identities as the Account Holder Because Developer ID signing identities are precious, the Developer website will only let the Account Holder create them. For instructions on how to do this, see Developer Account Help > Create certificates > Create Developer ID certificates. For more information about programme roles, see Developer > Support > Program Roles. IMPORTANT In an Organization team it’s common for the Account Holder to be non-technical. They may need help getting this done. For hints and tips on how to avoid problems while doing this, see Don’t Lose Your Private Key and Don’t Leak Your Private Key, both below. Limit the Number of Developer ID Signing Identities You Create Don’t create Developer ID signing identities unnecessarily. Most folks only need to create one. Well, one Developer ID Application and maybe one Developer ID Installer. A large organisation might need more, perhaps one for each sub-unit, but that’s it. There are two reasons why this is important: The more you have, the more likely it is for one to get into the wrong hands. Remember that anyone with your Developer ID signing identity can sign code as you. The Developer website limits you to 5 Developer ID certificates. Note I can never remember where this limit is actually documented, so here’s the exact quote from this page: You can create up to five Developer ID Application certificates and up to five Developer ID Installer certificates using either your developer account or Xcode. Don’t Lose Your Private Key There are two standard processes for creating a Developer ID signing identity: Developer website — See Developer Account Help > Create certificates > Create Developer ID certificates. Xcode — See Xcode Help > Maintaining signing assets > Manage signing certificates. Both processes implicitly create a private key in your login keychain. This makes it easy to lose your private key. For example: If you do this on one Mac and then get a new Mac, you might forget to move the private key to the new Mac. If you’re helping your Organization team’s Account Holder to create a Developer ID signing identity, you might forget to export the private key from their login keychain. It also makes it easy to accidentally leave a copy of the private key on a machine that doesn’t need it; see Don’t Leak Your Private Key, below, for specific advice on that front. Every time you create a Developer ID signing identity, it’s a good idea to make an independent backup of it. For advice on how to do that, see Back Up Your Signing Identities, below. That technique is also useful if you need to copy the signing identity to a continuous integration system. If you think you’ve lost the private key for a Developer ID signing identity, do a proper search for it. Finding it will save you a bunch of grief. You might be able to find it on your old Mac, in a backup, in a backup for your old Mac, and so on. For instructions on how to extract your private key from a general backup, see Recover a Signing Identity from a Mac Backup. If you’re absolutely sure that you previous private key is lost, use the Developer website to create a replacement signing identity. If the Developer website won’t let you create any more because you’ve hit the limit discussed above, talk to Developer Programs Support. Go to Apple > Developer > Contact Us and follow the path Development and Technical > Certificates, Identifiers, and Provisioning Profiles. Don’t Leak Your Private Key Anyone with your Developer ID signing identity can sign code as you. Thus, it’s important to take steps to prevent its private key from leaking. A critical first step is to limit access to your Developer ID signing identities. For advice on that front, see Limit Access to Developer ID, above. In an Organization team, only the Account Holder can create Developer ID signing identities. When they do this, a copy of the identity’s private key will most likely end up in their login keychain. Once you’ve exported the signing identity, and confirmed that everything is working, make sure to delete that copy of the private key. Some organisations have specific rules for managing Developer ID signing identities. For example, an organisation might require that the private key be stored in a hardware token, which prevents it from being exported. Setting that up is a bit tricky, but it offers important security benefits. Even without a hardware token, there are steps you can take to protect your Developer ID signing identity. For example, you might put it in a separate keychain, one with a different password and locking policy than your login keychain. That way signing code for distribution will prompt you to unlock the keychain, which reminds you that this is a significant event and ensures that you don’t do it accidentally. If you believe that your private key has been compromised, follow the instructions in the Compromised Certificates section of Developer > Support > Certificates. IMPORTANT Don’t go down this path if you’ve simply lost your private key. Back Up Your Signing Identities Given that Developer ID signing identities are precious, consider making an independent backup of them. To back up a signing identity to a PKCS#12 (.p12) file: Launch Keychain Access. At the top, select My Certificates. On the left, select the keychain you use for signing identities. For most folks this is the login keychain. Select the identity. Choose File > Export Items. In the file dialog, select Personal Information Exchange (.p12) in the File Format popup. Enter a name, navigate to your preferred location, and click Save. You might be prompted to enter the keychain password. If so, do that and click OK. You will be prompted to enter a password to protect the identity. Use a strong password and save this securely in a password manager, corporate password store, on a piece of paper in a safe, or whatever. You might be prompted to enter the keychain password again. If so, do that and click Allow. The end result is a .p12 file holding your signing identity. Save that file in a secure location, and make sure that you have a way to connect it to the password you saved in step 9. Remember to backup all your Developer ID signing identities, including the Developer ID Installer one if you created it. To restore a signing identity from a backup: Launch Keychain Access. Choose File > Import Items. In the open sheet, click Show Options. Use the Destination Keychain popup to select the target keychain. Navigate to and select the .p12 file, and then click Open. Enter the .p12 file’s password and click OK. If prompted, enter the destination keychain password and click OK. Recover a Signing Identity from a Mac Backup If you didn’t independently backup your Developer ID signing identity, you may still be able to recover it from a general backup of your Mac. To start, work out roughly when you created your Developer ID signing identity: Download your Developer ID certificate from the Developer website. In the Finder, Quick Look it. The Not Valid Before field is the date you’re looking for. Now it’s time to look in your backups. The exact details depend on the backup software you’re using, but the basic process runs something like this: Look for a backup taken shortly after the date you determined above. In that backup, look for the file ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain. Recover that to a convenient location, like your desktop. Don’t put it in ~/Library/Keychains because that’ll just confuse things. Rename it to something unique, like login-YYYY-MM-DD.keychain, where YYYY-MM-DD is the date of the backup. In Keychain Access, choose File > Add Keychain and, in the resulting standard file panel, choose that .keychain file. On the left, select login-YYYY-MM-DD. Chose File > Unlock Keychain “login-YYYY-MM-DD“. In the resulting password dialog, enter your login password at the date of the backup. At the top, select My Certificates. Look through the list of digital identities to find the Developer ID identity you want. If you don’t see the one you’re looking for, see Further Recovery Tips below. Export it using the process described at the start of Back Up Your Signing Identities. Once you’re done, remove the keychain from Keychain Access: On the left, select the login-YYYY-MM-DD keychain. Choose File > Delete Keychain “login-YYYY-MM-DD”. In the confirmation alert, click Remove Reference. The login-YYYY-MM-DD.keychain is now just a file. You can trash it, keep it, whatever, at your discretion. This process creates a .p12 file. To work with that, import it into your keychain using the process described at the end of Back Up Your Signing Identities. IMPORTANT Keep that .p12 file as your own independent backup of your signing identity. Further Recovery Tips If, in the previous section, you can’t find the Developer ID identity you want, there are a few things you might do: Look in a different backup. If your account has more than one keychain, look in your other keychains. If you have more than one login account, look at the keychains for your other accounts. If you have more than one Mac, look at the backups for your other Macs. The login-YYYY-MM-DD keychain might have the private key but not the certificate. Add your Developer ID certificate to that keychain to see if it pairs with a private key. Revision History 2025-03-28 Excised the discussion of Xcode’s import and export feature because that was removed in Xcode 16. 2025-02-20 Added some clarification to the end of Don’t Leak Your Private Key. 2023-10-05 Added the Recover a Signing Identity from a Mac Backup and Further Recovery Tips sections. 2023-06-23 Added a link to Identifying a Cloud Managed Signing Certificate. 2023-06-21 First posted.