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                 Move Downloaded Mac Apps Before Initial Launch

   Adam Engst

   Here's something we didn't previously know. On his Eclectic Light
   Company blog, Howard Oakley builds on [1]old research from Jeff Johnson
   to explain [2]Apple's minimally documented App Translocation security
   mechanism. In short, Gatekeeper in macOS protects against malicious
   plug-ins within benign apps by opening those apps from randomized,
   read-only locations'the new location prevents the app from accessing
   code or content using relative paths. As a result, apps you download,
   unzip, and open immediately will be translocated to'and opened from'a
   randomized directory. Although that usually works fine, it very
   occasionally can cause apps to crash on that first launch. The
   workaround'and Oakley's recommendation for all downloaded apps'is to
   move the app to a different location, such as one of the standard
   Applications folders (/Applications or ~/Applications). That's
   apparently sufficient to prevent the need for App Translocation and
   avoid associated crashes.

   [3]Read original article

References

   1. https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/app-translocation.html
   2. https://eclecticlight.co/2022/09/06/dont-run-that-app-where-it-landed-how-translocation-can-cause-crashes/
   3. https://eclecticlight.co/2022/09/06/dont-run-that-app-where-it-landed-how-translocation-can-cause-crashes/

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