Apparency for Mac
Check what's inside an app.
Free
In English
Version 2.2When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission
Apparency overview
Apparency - the app that opens apps.
macOS checks every app against a slew of security features: Gatekeeper, notarization, hardening, entitlements and more. But it doesn't show you the result of these checks, preferring to keep these behind the scenes — either the app opens or it doesn't, perhaps with an “app downloaded from the internet” dialog first.
Use Apparency for:
- Examining the App Structure
- Getting Information About a Component
- General Information
- Document Types and Other Info.plist Properties
- Code Signature, Sandbox and Gatekeeper Info
- Getting Details About a Component
- Show the Code Signature
- Show the Info Property List
- Show the Entitlements
- Show Executable Information
- Show App Store Receipt
- Show Provisioning Profile
- Examining Components in Other Apps
- Finding App Containers
- Finding Shared App Group Containers
- Using From Quick Look
What’s new in version 2.2
- When a component is found in a de facto code place, but is not independently signed, Apparency will now show the Signed By status as Resource in containing bundle, rather than No signature. The latter status can be deceptive, since the de facto component is usually a signed resource of the containing component, and thus is protected via the signature on that component; you can use the Bundle Resources inspector on that containing component to see the status of the de facto component's files. (Apparency will still show the independent signatures on de facto components where such signatures exist — commonly on standalone Mach-O executables that are found in the Resources folder, which might have special capabilities, such as background agents or login items.)
- Apparency now shows the component build version, where it's available. This is usually defined only for certain Apple apps, such as Xcode; it's most meaningful for beta versions of Xcode, which all share the same primary version number (e.g. “16.0”) but have different build versions (e.g. “16A5230g”). Apparency will show this as something like “16.0 (23049) — Build 16A5230g”, in both the info pane and the Quick Look preview. (The Xcode About and Welcome windows show this build version, as well as a beta number [e.g. “Version 16.0 beta 6 (16A5230g)”]. We'd like to show that beta number as well, but it's actually compiled into the app, so isn't readily accessible to Apparency.)
- Fixed the inexplicable “Apparency cannot open files in the ‘symbolic link’ format” error that would sometimes occur, especially when using the Open in Library in Apparency button in the Executable Information inspector. This would happen for frameworks that are symlinked into /System/Library, but that actually live in a cryptex, such as the frameworks associated with Safari and WebKit.
- Fixed a bug on the Apparency > Preferences > Locations pane where changes to paths or string literal sections would not be properly applied unless completed with the Return key (that is, clicking elsewhere would appear to take the changes, but they didn't actually take).
- Added some finesse to the Hardening and App Sandbox statuses for unsigned components that contain only resources (but no code). Previously, Apparency would show that the sandbox and hardening were Not enabled, but that doesn't really mean anything in the absence of code, so they are now reported as Not applicable instead.
- In the Bundle Resources inspector, fix some crazy status that could be displayed when “all bundle resources are excluded from code signature.”
- Fixed a bug in the Provisioning Profile inspector where making the sheet taller would only add pointless space around the Provisioned Devices instead of making the Provisioned Entitlements table taller, as you'd hope.
- Enhanced the Quick Look preview to show the source code for scripts that are executable and have a #! directive, but that don't have an explicit file extension (like .sh or .py). Since macOS doesn't look inside files to determine their kind, it sees these as being of kind “Unix Executable” (the same as a Mach-O executable) and asks Apparency to preview them. The Apparency preview isn't very useful here ... although to be fair, neither is the default preview that macOS would show if Apparency weren't installed. Anyway, Apparency now detects this situation, and makes a temporary copy of the script with an explicit extension, so that macOS will choose a better Quick Look preview. [Read More]
- Make the Apparency Quick Look preview activate for XPC service bundles. These are usually only buried inside app bundles (and will be shown in the component browser for the containing app), but if this saves you some time, have at it.
Apparency for Mac
Free
In English
Version 2.2
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