Apple will lock down Full Disk Access on Macs, saying AI agents make it riskier

Mac apps that read your whole drive will need a far more deliberate yes from you, and agents like Meta's Muse already ask for one.

By Think Facility · October 2, 2026 · Apple AI agents

Apple is going to make it harder for Mac apps to get Full Disk Access, and on October 2, 2026 it named AI agents as the reason. It said so in a short post on its developer news page, written for the people who build Mac apps.

Full Disk Access is the macOS setting that lets an app read nearly everything on the machine. Apple says it's there so backup apps work, and that it "largely sidesteps" the controls guarding users' private data. The post doesn't say when the new controls arrive, or in which version of macOS.

Announced: October 2, 2026
Setting: Full Disk Access in macOS
Change: Additional controls, very explicit user action
Reason Apple gives: AI agents becoming increasingly capable and autonomous

What Apple said

Apple says some developers use the permission in ways that put people at risk, exposing their files, mail, messages and browsing history without them really understanding it. Chat apps get a line of their own. When one of those has the whole disk, the people on the other end of your conversations lose privacy too.

The curved glass ring of Apple Park lit from inside at dusk, seen through a row of tall pine trees beyond a road — Apple Park in Cupertino, December 2017. Photo: F ASTILY, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Apple's fix is to make granting the permission a deliberate act, so only people who really want an app to have it will get there. Agents are why it's acting now.

As AI agents become increasingly capable and autonomous, the risks associated with this level of access will grow substantially.

From Updates to Full Disk Access in macOS

Apple names no app and no developer at all. Under today's rules, which go back to macOS 10.13, an app that wants the whole drive already has to be added by hand in System Settings, under Privacy & Security (Apple's platform security guide describes it). Apple didn't say what the more explicit step will look like.

Which agents ask for it

Meta's Muse does, for one feature (reading your texts). Muse came to the Mac in September, and it can only read your Messages once you've granted it Full Disk Access and switched on its Messages connector. Andy Stone spelled that out on X on September 29, three days before Apple's post.

Andy Stone@andymstoneSep 29, 9:25 pm ET

Let's set the record straight: the Messages integration in the Muse app for Mac is entirely opt-in. You have to enable both Full Disk Access and the Messages connector for Muse to be able to read your Messages content. It can't read your Messages unless you do this. And it can be revoked at any time.

View the post on X

It isn't the first security question Muse has faced on the Mac. Patrick Wardle found an undocumented setting in it that local malware could use to redirect your dictation, which we covered in September.

Apple's post closes on a promise to make sure people understand the risks before they hand an app this much access. It doesn't give a date for the change.

Apple will lock down Full Disk Access on Macs, saying AI agents make it riskier

What Apple said

Which agents ask for it

More on AI products