How can I “Open an app from an unidentified developer” without using the GUI?

apple.stackexchange https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/297050

  •  16-04-2021
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Question

Basically, I used the native Safari.app web browser to download a third party application and I want to run / open it from the comfort of my bash shell / Terminal.app CLI; despite the following error message:

“<unidentified_thirdparty.app>” can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified 
 developer. Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the Mac 
 App Store and identified developers. Safari downloaded this file on <today's_date> 
 from <the.inter.net>.
                                          |[OK]|
Was it helpful?

Solution

You'll either have to change the settings under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General > Allow applications downloaded from: to Anywhere or in a Terminal, strip the xattr com.apple.quarantine attribute from the downloaded file(s).

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine "unidentified_thirdparty.app"

OTHER TIPS

Enter this in the Terminal under a administrator account: sudo spctl --master-disable

To do it wisely in command line

  1. xattr -p com.apple.quarantine unidentified_thirdparty.app outputs something like 0081;5e7fec61;Chrome;6585C1D3-E260-4275-9E6E-505DF8D6B7EE
  2. Copy the output string, replace first 4 characters with 00c1
  3. run xattr -w com.apple.quarantine 00c1;5e7fec61;Chrome;6585C1D3-E260-4275-9E6E-505DF8D6B7EE unidentified_thirdparty.app

or, combine these steps into a single command:

xattr -w com.apple.quarantine "$(attr -p com.apple.quarantine unidentified_thirdparty.app | sed 's/^.\{4\}/00c1/' )" unidentified_thirdparty.app

My blog post on this.

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