Big Sur Problem?: "You do not have permission to open the application"

With the new update off MacOS I have encountered an issue with opening quite a few off my applications as it says within the title I do not have the permission to open the application. Has anyone had any similar problems to this if so what have you done to resolve this and why does this occur.
  • Use this. It worked for me - codesign --force --deep --sign - /Applications/SpringToolSuite4.app

    It will try to force sign the app and give you permission to run it.

  • Thanks @SridharRaj this fix worked for me. I had been digging for a fix for about 3 hours. Watched YouTube videos, ran utilities, changed permissions, enabled apps from anywhere et al but nothing worked. I am so very grateful. Thanks again.

  • Thanks @SridharRaj this worked for me too... You saved my time :-)

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I have tried EVERY single work around for this issue, and still have the same "You do not have permission to open the application"
if I move the application to any mac not running Big Sur it works fine. move it back to Big Sur, doesn't work.
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codesign --force --deep --sign - /Applications/AppName.app


This worked for me on macOS Big Sur. Arqtistic posted a link to Stackoverflow. ajmas mentioned that some of you may have problems opening apps because of a signature error. This signs the app again. Make sure to replace "/Applications/AppName.app" with your app by removing this line and drag and drop you app into the terminal, so the path gets automatically copied.

This may not be the solution for everyone. You may have to use "sudo spctl –master-disable" before. Don't forget to enable it again even if nothing worked.

the below info worked for me.

open terminal. 
enter sudo chmod -R 755
then drag and drop the application you are trying to open.
click enter 
then enter your password
  • You are a genius!!!!! this worked for me, I'm not used to Terminal sooo I didn't quite understand at first, 1. sudo bash (press enter) 2. sudo chmod -R 755 (drag the app from desktop) (enter again) and that did the trick!!

  • Just updated system to Big Sur 11.5.2 and Adobe Acrobat permissions were gone. Applied this and sweet :D thanks!

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I experienced also a problem with the permission to open an application. Nothing solved the issue, whatever I tried.

I was using Archiver.app, and could not imagine that this App might be the reason of the problem. But, then I tried Archive Utility.app, and all worked fine.

In case you have a problem with permissions of opening an App, just try to use another decompressing App.
i found something that worked, at least for me. go to finder, then applications, find the application you are trying to open, and then right click it. in the options that come up, click "new terminal at folder". once the terminal is open, copy and paste " chmod -R 777 . " (with the dot!) then click enter. now try to open the application again. it should give you an error saying that the app is not trusted or something like that, but you can override this by just going to finder, applications, then right clicking the app and clicking open. this will manually let you open the app. hope this helps or wasn't too confusing, i'm not very good with the script stuff :)
  • It DID work for me! Many thx man. It was driving me nuts!

  • Great! You have found THE final solution! Thanks a lot. It works!

  • Thanks! I don't know the details, but clearly the space+dot makes a huge difference. Changing permissions without it did NOT work, but this did:

    chmod -R 777 . /Applications/[application]

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tried everything, but only resign helped:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/64985297/14415334

error was (via terminal $open /App):
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The application cannot be opened for an unexpected reason, error=Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-10826 "kLSNoLaunchPermissionErr: User doesn't have permission to launch the app (managed networks)" UserInfo={_LSFunction=_LSLaunchWithRunningboard, _LSLine=2508, NSUnderlyingError=0x7fa5f3806a50 {Error Domain=RBSRequestErrorDomain Code=5 "Launch failed." UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Launch failed., NSUnderlyingError=0x7fa5f3807330 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=153 "Unknown error: 153" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Launchd job spawn failed with error: 153}}}}}


I had it working, I tried first:
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xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine app.app

Then:
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sudo xattr -r -d com.apple.quarantine app.app

And then:
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sudo chmod -R 755 app.app

go to terminal and type

chmod -R 755 (file path)

Instead of manyually typing it you can drag and drop it. then press enter/return and right click the app, they click open.
It has something to do with the enclosing folder permissions. Try "sudo chmod -R 755" on the enclosing folder... I just had this problem with new Opera Installer and this old trick ("sudo chmod -R 755 OperaSetup") has worked like a charm, whereas the other proposed solutions failed.

Yeah unfortunately nothing has worked for me. I have tried literally everything that is on this form and others on the Internet. The only way I can temporarily circumvent the issue, is to reinstall the app from its original source. But then after 24 hours, it always will pop up this message again.

You do not have permission to open the application Contact your computer or network admin for assistance.

But I am the only admin on this computer, what's going on Apple?

@K714 same thing here nothing works so frustrating this Gatekeeper thing is really anoying. Even I setup a separate account as Admin same issue.

This got it working for me.

sudo chmod -R 755 Application.app

I too have tried all methods on this page and others but still cannot get any apps off the internet working.

This problem have several solution. They differ according to the type of the application you want to open. You can find all the possible solutions in this article https://www.itech4mac.net/apps-troubleshooting

  • This worked great for me as I was having problems opening a scanner utility. Plus being uncomfortable with using the terminal app. Additionally, according to the website, this solution came from Apple.

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I have an answer (sorry for a little late): If you go into the app's contents (right/control click, Show Package Contents, Contents, MacOS), a file with the same name will come up. Open terminal, and type in chmod +x then drag & drop that file and press enter. The application should now work!

  • Still doesnt work, can you explain detailled what you did?

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