Apple to Tighten Mac Data Access After AI Agent Complaints

Apple is changing how Macs hand out one of the most powerful permissions on the machine. On Friday, the company said it will make it more obvious when AI agents ask for access to all of the data on a Mac, and granting that access will require "very explicit user action."

The permission in question is called Full Disk Access. It gives an app the ability to read a user's files, mail, messages, and even browsing history. It was designed for backup software, but AI agents have made it something else. Apple said the risks of that level of access "will grow substantially" as agents become more capable and autonomous.

The complaint behind it

The announcement followed a week of complaints about Meta's Muse, an AI agent that can take on tasks like canceling unused subscriptions or haggling for lower prices. Jason Aten, a technology columnist at Inc., said the app knew the content of his private messages even though, he said, he had not given it permission to read them.

The dispute cut to a basic question about desktop AI: how much of a computer should an agent be allowed to touch. Apps on the iPhone and iPad are sealed off from each other's data. The Mac is more open by design, and Full Disk Access is the setting that opens it widest.

Meta's response

Meta disputed Aten's account. Andy Stone, Meta's communications chief, said last week that the Messages integration in the Muse app for Mac is "entirely opt-in." Access requires two separate settings, he said — Full Disk Access and a Messages connector — and both can be revoked at any time. "It can't read your Messages unless you do this," he wrote on X.

Muse's Mac app arrived in mid-September. The complaints started almost immediately after.

What Apple said

Apple did not name Meta or Muse in its announcement. In a blog post aimed at developers, the company wrote that "some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could put users at risk, exposing everything on their systems...without users' full knowledge and understanding."

The timing was hard to miss. A Wired report this week also found that a flaw in the Mac app for ChatGPT could have let hackers reach sensitive user data, adding to the pressure around desktop agents.

What changes

Apple said it is building new controls so that users who "genuinely wish to grant an app this extraordinary level of access" can do so only with clear, explicit confirmation. The company framed the move as informed consent rather than a new limit on the permission itself.

Apple did not say when the changes will arrive, and it did not respond to a request for comment.