There's another "security UI" issue in the latest macOS, that's been there for at least a few versions.
I go into "Privacy & Security", "Full Disk Access". A bunch of apps added themselves in there (Anki, Fission, Microsoft Autoupdate, WhatsApp), the toggle is disabled and I've never enabled it. Ok, whatever.
But when I go into "Files & Folders", and under those apps I see "Full Disk Access" in gray. Apps that have Full Disk Access toggled on look identical, with "Full Disk Access" in gray. What the hell am I supposed to make of that?
Is it a bug? Do they have full disk access? Is the UI trying to imply that those apps are solely controlled by the FullDisk toggle and are ineligible to request granular permissions for Desktop/Documents? Or that they are eligible, but haven't requested it? Or maybe they did request it, and I granted it, but I don't get to see it? Who knows?
That is really poorly worded by Apple, because if I understand it correctly, the "Files & Folders" list is just a list of apps that have requested Full Disk Access/FDA (or other locations).
It's really confusing that some of those settings can be toggled on/off, while the Full Disk Access is greyed out and can only be toggled under "Privacy & Security".
To add to the confusion, toggling FDA off just protects a few selected folders that Apple decided are extra sensitive, like:
Messages ~/Library/Messages
Safari browsing history ~/Library/Safari
Cookies ~/Library/Cookies
Identity services ~/Library/IdentityServices
Spotlight data ~/Library/Metadata/CoreSpotlight
Phone call history ~/Library/Application Support/CallHistoryDB
Facetime data ~/Library/Application Support/Facetime
TCC database ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC.db
"Normal" files and folders on your disk (including Desktop, Documents, Downloads, network volumes, and removable volumes) can always be accessed (even with FDA permission revoked!) after a simple prompt. [1]
I go into "Privacy & Security", "Full Disk Access". A bunch of apps added themselves in there (Anki, Fission, Microsoft Autoupdate, WhatsApp), the toggle is disabled and I've never enabled it. Ok, whatever.
But when I go into "Files & Folders", and under those apps I see "Full Disk Access" in gray. Apps that have Full Disk Access toggled on look identical, with "Full Disk Access" in gray. What the hell am I supposed to make of that?
Is it a bug? Do they have full disk access? Is the UI trying to imply that those apps are solely controlled by the FullDisk toggle and are ineligible to request granular permissions for Desktop/Documents? Or that they are eligible, but haven't requested it? Or maybe they did request it, and I granted it, but I don't get to see it? Who knows?