Hello,
I'm desperately looking for a way to purge the contents of the Local Network allowlist in System Settings. Every version of a test app I've ever used gets an entry in there, and apparently so does each build of Chrome and Claude Code.
Claude recommended I include the following context, and if there's a specific answer to that, great, but any way of purging this list would make me very happy.
==== Caution: slop below this line ====
macOS 27.0 (26A428), Apple silicon. The Local Network list has 471 entries, many dead: Chrome code_sign_clone paths that no longer exist, old ad-hoc builds, uninstalled apps. The pane can't remove any.
Is there a supported way to remove entries or reset the list, short of Recovery?
Editing /Library/Preferences/com.apple.networkextension.plist as root fails with EPERM, both rename-over and open-for-write. New files in that directory work. SIP is on, the file has no flags or xattrs, Full Disk Access didn't help, and there are no Sandbox/TCC denials in the log.
What protects this file?
The best way to deal with this problem is to avoid creating duplicate entries. You do that by giving your program a persistent code signing identity. For day-to-day development that means signing code with an Apple Development code-signing identity. In Xcode you get that by enabling “Automatically manage signing” and then selecting your team from the Team popup.
Note If you’re not a member of a paid team, you can enter any Apple Account into Xcode > Settings > Apple Accounts and use that as a Personal Team. This has significant limitations, but those are less restrictive on macOS than iOS. For the details, see Developer > Support > Choosing a Membership.
If you have unwanted entries there’s no supported way to get rid of them on currently shipping systems. However, that’s changing. The first seed of macOS 27.2 beta adds (+) and remove (-) buttons below the list in Settings. Yay!
For lots of other local network privacy hints and tips, see TN3179 Understanding local network privacy.
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
