How to Revoke App Permissions on Your Mac

Revoking a permission on macOS sounds intimidating but is genuinely just a toggle. The interesting parts are: knowing where each permission lives, what happens to the app afterwards, and how to remove permissions for apps you’ve already uninstalled.

Here’s a complete guide for Sonoma 14 and Sequoia 15.

The single starting point

System Settings → Privacy & Security. From here, every permission category has its own row in the left column. Click in to see the list of apps with that permission. Toggle individual apps off to revoke.

Some categories require unlocking first — click the lock icon at the bottom (older macOS) or just authenticate when prompted (newer macOS).

Categories worth knowing about

These are the permission categories you’ll see, with brief notes on what each grants:

1. Location Services — knowledge of where the Mac is
2. Contacts — read your address book
3. Calendars — read and write events
4. Reminders — read and modify reminders
5. Photos — full or limited photo library access
6. Camera — turn on the webcam
7. Microphone — turn on the mic
8. Speech Recognition — process speech
9. Accessibility — control your Mac (keystrokes, clicks)
10. Input Monitoring — read your typing system-wide
11. Full Disk Access — read essentially anything on disk
12. Files and Folders — granular per-folder access
13. Screen & System Audio Recording — capture screen and audio
14. Media & Apple Music — read your music library
15. HomeKit — control HomeKit accessories
16. Bluetooth — communicate with nearby devices
17. Local Network — scan the local Wi-Fi for devices
18. Automation — control other apps
19. App Management — install, modify, remove apps
20. Developer Tools — run unsigned tools
21. Motion & Fitness — read motion data (relevant for Macs with sensors)

Most of these you’ll never need to touch. A handful (Camera, Mic, Location, Full Disk Access, Files and Folders) are worth periodic audits.

How to revoke a single permission

The process for any permission category:

1. Open System Settings (cmd-space → “System Settings” → return)
2. Privacy & Security in the sidebar
3. Click the category (e.g., Camera)
4. Find the app in the list
5. Toggle it off

Done. The app no longer has that permission.

Some categories require you to authenticate before toggling. Sequoia 15 made some categories require authentication every time, which is annoying but a privacy improvement.

What happens when you revoke

Three possible outcomes:

1. The app keeps working perfectly. It didn’t actually need the permission for its main job. This is the most common outcome.
2. The app prompts again next time it needs the permission. macOS shows the standard “App wants to access your X” dialog. You allow or deny.
3. A specific feature breaks. Voice memos in a note app stop working, but the rest of the app is fine. The app may show a clearer error or just fail silently in that one feature.

Apps don’t get a notification that you’ve revoked a permission. They find out next time they try to use it.

Removing apps from the list entirely

Toggling off keeps the app in the list with permission off. To remove the app entry entirely:

1. Click the app to select it
2. Click the minus button at the bottom of the panel (it’s small)
3. Authenticate if asked
4. The app is removed from this category’s list

Why would you remove vs just toggle off? Mostly for tidiness. A list of 50 apps with most toggled off is harder to audit later than a list of 10 apps that actually use the permission.

You can always re-grant later — the app will prompt next time it tries to use the feature, and macOS shows the dialog as if it were fresh.

Stale entries from uninstalled apps

The annoying scenario: you uninstalled “OldApp” months ago, but it’s still listed in three permission categories. The permission isn’t doing anything (no app to claim it), but the entries are clutter.

Remove them the same way as above: select, click minus, authenticate.

If macOS won’t let you remove an entry, the app is still installed somewhere on your Mac that macOS can detect. Check Applications, Login Items (System Settings → General → Login Items), and possibly Library folders.

A proper app uninstaller tool removes everything related to an app, including stale permission entries. macOS’s drag-to-Trash uninstall doesn’t handle this thoroughly.

Audit your permissions in one screenSweep shows every app’s camera, mic, file, and location permissions on one page. Revoke in one click. Get Sweep free →

Special case: Accessibility

Apps with Accessibility permission can read screen content, send keystrokes and clicks, and basically pretend to be you. This is a powerful permission — about as serious as Full Disk Access.

Apps that genuinely need it:

• Window managers (Rectangle, Magnet, BetterTouchTool)
• Macro tools (Keyboard Maestro, Karabiner Elements, BetterTouchTool)
• Accessibility tools (Voice Control, screen readers)
• Some text expansion tools (Alfred, Raycast for some features)

Anything else with Accessibility permission deserves serious scrutiny. To revoke:

1. System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility
2. Click the lock at bottom (older macOS) or authenticate
3. Toggle off the apps you don’t want to have it
4. Or click the minus button to remove the app entry entirely

Some apps will lose features. They typically show a clear “needs Accessibility access” dialog when you try to use a feature that requires it.

Special case: Input Monitoring

Input Monitoring lets an app read your keystrokes system-wide. Even more sensitive than Accessibility in some ways.

Apps that legitimately need it:

• Some text expansion tools (Alfred, TextExpander)
• Some macro tools (Keyboard Maestro)
• Some accessibility tools

Most apps don’t. If you see anything unfamiliar in Input Monitoring, audit hard.

Special case: Automation

The Automation list is different from others. Each entry shows an app and the apps it can control. So “TextEdit can control Finder” is a row.

This permission lets one app drive another via AppleScript. Useful for some automation workflows. But also a way for an app to read or modify other apps’ data.

Audit by app: who’s getting controlled by what? If you see a controller app you don’t recognise, revoke.

Reset all permissions for an app

If you want to wipe all permissions for a specific app (so it has to ask fresh next time), there’s a Terminal command:

tccutil reset All com.example.AppBundleID

Replace com.example.AppBundleID with the actual bundle ID. You can find an app’s bundle ID by ctrl-clicking it in Applications → Show Package Contents → Contents → Info.plist → look for CFBundleIdentifier.

This resets all categories at once. Heavy-handed but useful for fresh-state testing.

Reset every permission for every app (nuclear option)

Don’t. But it exists:

tccutil reset All

Wipes all TCC (Transparency, Consent, Control) permissions for every app. Every app prompts for everything next time it tries to access anything. You’ll be tapping Allow / Deny dialogs for days.

Useful if your permission state is corrupt and nothing’s working. Otherwise: don’t.

Don’t dig through Settings yourselfSweep surfaces every app’s permissions in one place. Free for macOS →

Browsers: per-site permissions are separate

Apps you grant Camera, Mic, or Location to via System Settings get OS-level permission. But browsers also have per-site permissions inside them — sites that have been allowed Camera, Mic, Location, etc.

Revoking the browser’s OS-level permission disables it for all sites at once. Revoking a single site’s permission inside the browser is more targeted.

For Safari: Safari → Settings → Websites. Categories on the left. Per-site permissions on the right. Edit each site’s setting individually.

For Chrome: chrome://settings/content. Each permission category has Allow and Block lists, both editable.

A quick checklist for a permission cleanup

If you want to do this in one sitting:

1. System Settings → Privacy & Security
2. Walk through each category: Camera, Mic, Location, Full Disk Access first (highest stakes)
3. For each, toggle off apps you don’t actively use
4. Remove stale entries from uninstalled apps
5. Repeat for the medium-stakes categories (Photos, Contacts, Calendars, Files and Folders)
6. Skip the niche ones unless something looks wrong (Bluetooth, Local Network, etc.)

15 minutes for a typical Mac. Worth doing twice a year.

Sweep does this audit in one screen. Every app, every permission, in a single sortable view, with one-click revocation. Faster than the System Settings walk, and gives you a clearer picture of where the powerful permissions actually live on your Mac.