Apple Wants to Rethink Full Disk Access Before AI Agents Get Too Much of It

Good. This should have happened before the agents arrived, not after.

Apple says it will add extra controls to Full Disk Access on macOS. That is the permission that lets an app read everything on the Mac: files, mail, messages, browsing history. Apple’s reasoning is that some apps ask for it in ways people do not really understand, and that the risk grows as AI agents become more capable and more autonomous. There is no date for the change yet.

I work with AI agents every day, so this is not a theoretical problem for me. And even so, I do not give them full access to the machine I work on. Never. They get the folders the task needs, or a controlled environment built for the job. When something genuinely needs the whole disk, it gets a whole disk: a separate machine prepared for exactly that, like a Mac mini that holds nothing I would miss.

That is the part people skip. An agent with Full Disk Access is not “an assistant that can see your documents”. It is a program that can read every message you have ever sent and act on what it finds, without asking again. The permission dialog looks the same as the one a backup app shows you. The consequences are not the same at all.

I will be honest about my own habits, because they are probably yours too. I do not audit every permission I have ever granted. What I do is check everything a new app asks for until it has earned some trust, and I read every request when it appears, at minimum the title, so I know what I am agreeing to. That is a low bar. Plenty of people do not clear it, and Apple knows it, which is the whole reason for this announcement.

In the meantime, open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, then Full Disk Access, and look at the list. Anything you do not recognise, or anything that does not need your entire disk to do its job, switch it off. If you use an AI agent, give it a folder, not the house.

That is my opinion. The announcement is public, go read it yourselves.