Apple is moving to make one of macOS’s most powerful permissions harder to grant, arguing that AI agents have turned an old utility feature into a sharper privacy risk.¹

The immediate backdrop was a report by Inc. columnist Jason Aten, who said Meta’s Muse AI appeared to know the contents of his private messages despite his belief that he had not authorized that access. Meta disputed the account. Spokesman Andy Stone said reading Messages is “entirely opt-in,” requiring users to enable both Full Disk Access and Muse’s Messages connector.¹

Days later, Apple told developers it would add controls around Full Disk Access, a macOS permission originally meant to let backup software work properly. The setting can reach virtually everything on a machine: files, email, Messages and browsing history, while largely bypassing the operating system’s normal privacy safeguards.²

Apple’s position is that the permission is no longer being used only for the narrow jobs that justified it. “Some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could put users at risk,” the company said, warning that users may expose their systems without fully understanding the consequences.²

The company’s remedy is not an outright ban. Users who truly want to give an app this “extraordinary level of access” will still be able to do so, Apple said—but only through “very explicit user action.”¹

That distinction is central to the emerging fight over desktop AI. Developers see broad device access as a route to more capable assistants; Apple is signalling that capability cannot come at the expense of informed consent. As agents become more autonomous, it said, the risks of such access will “grow substantially.”²

Apple has not said when the new controls will arrive.¹