Hi everyone, We are facing a critical blocker with our macOS app processing. Since March 5, 2026, every single build we have uploaded (8 builds total) has been stuck in the "Processing" state for over 4 days. For our project, due to the large binary size, processing usually takes about 4 to 6 hours normally. However, we now have a long queue of builds that haven't transitioned to "Ready to Submit" for up to 80+ hours. Stuck Builds List: 1.0.0 (444): Mar 8, 3:09 PM (Processing) 1.0.0 (443): Mar 8, 5:36 AM (Processing) 1.0.0 (440): Mar 7, 6:37 AM (Processing) 1.0.0 (438): Mar 6, 5:01 PM (Processing) 1.0.0 (434): Mar 6, 12:04 AM (Processing) 1.0.0 (433): Mar 5, 6:26 PM (Processing) 1.0.0 (432): Mar 5, 10:51 AM (Processing) 1.0.0 (431): Mar 5, 6:11 AM (Processing) (Note: The last successful build was 1.0.0 (429) on March 4, which processed within the expected 6-hour window.) There have been no changes to our project settings, Info.plist, or entitlements since the last successful build. This is completely halting our scheduled update release. Is anyone else experiencing a similar backlog with large macOS binaries? Or is there a known issue with the App Store Connect pipeline for the macOS platform recently? Any help or investigation from Apple engineers would be greatly appreciated. (Feedback ID: FB22156358)

I'm an indie developer. My latest minor update for my game which has been on the Mac App Store for 13 years and which has spent time at #1 on the download charts just started getting rejected for the following reason: Guideline 2.5.2 - Performance - Software Requirements The app installed or launched executable code. Specifically, the app uses the itms-services URL scheme to install an app. However my app is certainly not installing any apps and to the best of my knowlege it is not using any itms/itunes/etc. type URLs in any way, so I can't figure out what would be triggering this claim. Inquiries as to what app I am supposedly installing or what URL I am supposedly using have yielded 'no further information can be provided'. Has anyone run into something similar? Any ideas on obscure scenarios that could trigger this particular rejection? Or any advice on what one should do in my situation? I feel a bit stuck. Has anyone had luck with the appeal process for this sort of thing (to at least get more information)?

Dear App Review & App Store policy team, I am writing as an independent macOS developer who has spent more than the last six months building TilesWM, a full‑featured window‑manager that rivals existing products such as Magnet, Divvy and BetterSnapTool. The app works exactly like those solutions: it uses the Accessibility (AX) API to move and resize arbitrary windows, registers global hot‑keys, and stores user preferences locally in ~/Library/Application Support/<bundle‑identifier>. When I attempt to submit TilesWM through App Store Connect the validation process failed with two errors, one of which was relatively easily solvable with the help of "ssmith_c" and "Quinn". The other, the hard blocker: Sandbox not enabled – the app does not contain the required com.apple.security.app-sandbox = true entitlement. but: The same accessibility entitlement is absent from the binaries of Magnet, Divvy, BetterSnapTool and other window‑manager apps that are already available on the Mac App Store. Those applications were on the Store before Apple introduced the mandatory sandbox requirement (≈ macOS 10.7.3-ish). Consequently, they continue to operate without a sandbox while new entrants are forced either to abandon the platform or to distribute outside the App Store. This situation creates an uneven playing field that contradicts Apple’s stated commitment to an open and competitive ecosystem. All developers pay the same $99 annual fee and should follow identical review guidelines; yet legacy window‑manager apps enjoy a privileged exemption that new developers cannot obtain, effectively granting them a perpetual non‑compete advantage. What I am asking for Clarification: Is a missing Sandbox entitlement truly unsupported for Mac App Store distribution or is there a way to "request" an exception? Policy action: Please evaluate an option to provide a concrete path forward so that TilesWM can be submitted without having to abandon the App Store. Point of contact – If this issue falls outside the scope of App Review, kindly direct me to the team or individual responsible for macOS sandbox policy decisions. I remain committed to distributing my app through the Mac App Store because it is the primary channel users trust and expect. I believe that a fair resolution will benefit developers, Apple, and end‑users alike by expanding the selection of high‑quality window‑management tools. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to a constructive response and to working together toward an equitable solution. Respectfully, Denis Steinhorst Full‑Stack Engineer & macOS enthusiast Bundle ID: dev.steinhorst.tileswm

I'm trying to test the update process for an app containing an FSKit module that I'm distributing on the Mac App Store. (I'm also distributing the same app directly with Developer ID, but here I'll focus on App Store because that's the behavior I've been looking at first.) To do that I'm using an internal tester group on TestFlight and then testing an update with TestFlight. Below is the behavior I'm seeing on macOS 15.7.2 (24G325). I've noticed that if an app update is triggered while a disk is mounted using the FSKit extension, the disk is automatically unmounted without warning (FB21287341). That's already undesirable itself in my opinion, but on top of the unmount, there are two other problems: That unmount doesn't seem to be a "clean" unmount and doesn't call functions like synchronize (FB21287688). Now, in my case, my app only provides read-only access, so that doesn't actually matter much in my case. However, I'd imagine if I were to add write access at some point in the future, this would go from "doesn't matter" to "very bad." I've seen a few cases where quitting or crashing the FSModule process while a volume is mounted without actually doing a clean unmount causes a lot of "disk-related actions" (for lack of a better term) to freeze (FB21305906). For example, a use of the mount(8) command or trying to mount a disk at all freezes, and opening Disk Utility stalls on a "Loading disks" spinning indicator. This happens until the Mac is rebooted. I did notice this issue once while testing updates via TestFlight a few times. The same applies if I simply delete the app with Finder instead of updating it. Is there a way to prevent the extension's process from terminating in this case and/or another workaround I could use without waiting for a macOS update to hopefully change this behavior? And does observing this kind of behavior with TestFlight's update behavior suggest the same thing could happen on the App Store with its automatic updates? I'm concerned that pushing an update via the App Store will unexpectedly unmount disks or cause the system-wide issues described in FB21305906 at a random time, which is a pretty big disruption for users.

Hello, I hope to find out more about how AppTransaction works on macOS, specifically about its internet connection requirements: if I use this to validate that the app is a legit purchase from the Mac App Store, I would not want it to have an always-on requirement just to validate. Does AppTransaction require the user to always be online for AppTransaction.shared ? When an app is downloaded from the Mac App Store, is the data needed for AppTransaction automatically embedded during that download, or is that data downloaded upon first launch of the app, therefore requiring an internet connection at launch time? Once the data/receipt has been downloaded by AppTransaction, is it cached until the app's next update, or is it cleared at some time during the version's life and needs to be re-downloaded, therefore requiring an internet connection at launch? Where is that receipt/data stored? Also, if you don't mind me sneaking in this non-related but sort of related question, in terms of receipt validation: Does macOS Sequoia's MAC address rotation feature affect receipt validation in any way when using IOKit? Thank you kindly, – Matthias

Is it possible to create a sandboxed app that uses accessibility permission? And if so, how do I ask the user for that permission in a way that is allowed by the App Store? Im creating a small menubar app and my current (rejected) solution is to create a pop-up, with link to Security &amp; Privacy &gt; Accessibility and the pop-up asks the user to manually add the app to the list and check the checkbox. This works in sandbox. Reason for rejection: "Specifically, your app requires to grant accessibility access, but once we opened the accessibility settings, your app was not listed." I know it's not listed there and it has to be added manually. But its the only solution I've found to this issue. Is there perhaps any way to add the app there programmatically? Im a bit confused since I've seen other apps in App Store that work the same way, where you have to add the app to the list manually. Eg. Flycut. :man-shrugging: I know about this alternative solution, and it's not allowed in sandboxed apps. It also adds the app to the accessibility list automagically: func getPermission() { AXIsProcessTrustedWithOptions([kAXTrustedCheckOptionPrompt.takeUnretainedValue():true] as CFDictionary). } Does anyone have a solution for this? Best regards, Daniel

Hi, I am facing a very weird issue where I am unable to download our own application from TestFlight for testing. This issue only happens for one of our applications; we are able to download our other applications without any issues. Furthermore, this only happens on one of our MacBooks; the game downloads fine on our other MacBook (macOS 15) and can run our application. When running the console, I noticed this error being thrown when the TestFlight fails the download: I have tried reinstalling TestFlight, clearing all instances of our application as what Finder can find, restarting the MacBook but nothing worked. Is there anyone that faced this similar issue, or any Apple staff that could help with this? OS version: macOS Tahoe (26 Beta) latest TestFlight was able to download on this version previously, until one day it couldn't (and not sure why), tried downloading latest version but did not solve the issue. Note: We noticed that we are unable to install our own application from the Appstore as well, on this MacBook that has the TestFlight issue.

I received the email from Apple entitled "Final reminder: Answer the updated age ratings questions." However if I login to App Connect, or click on the link in the email to go directly to App Connect, there are no questions. There are 6 tabs/sections in App Connect, flicking through them, there are no questions about age ratings. Even if I could find these questions, if there are no apps actually released to the App Store (and no plans to release any) is answering these questions necessary? The Apple email sounds quite threatening in its tone, hinting at consequences if you don't comply, but I can't comply because no questions in App Connect are being presented.