How to reset (remove) apps from "Local Network" privacy settings?

App & System Services Networking Privacy

Thomas Tempelmann OP

Created Oct ’24

Replies 18

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macOS 15 has added a new "Local Network" permission under Security & Privacy.

I had a bug in my app that led to a crash when the user denied this permission. Now I've fixed it and would like to verify that it all works fine.

The problem is: I need to remove my app from the settings so that macOS will show the prompt again (e.g. to verify that my custom message appears correctly).

Usually, sudo tccutil reset All would do the trick. But not for this permission! The apps do not get cleared with this command.

So, there's two issues:

tccutil should remove it but doesn't.
How can I remove this settings?

Update

I had a look at the "TCC.db" (see https://www.rainforestqa.com/blog/macos-tcc-db-deep-dive), and it seems to me that the Local Network permission isn't even managed by the TCC system, as it doesn't appear in it. This is odd.

Answered by DTS Engineer in 809215022

I’m in the process of updating the Local Network Privacy FAQ and, as part of that, I’ve researched this question in depth. Currently there’s no good way to reset local network privacy on the Mac (r. 134842755). Personally, I get around this by running my program in a virtual machine (VM). To retest, I restore the VM from a snapshot taken before I installed your program.

Alternatively, create a new user account and run your test there. Remember that macOS maintains separate local network privacy state for each user account.

the Local Network permission isn't even managed by the TCC system

That’s correct. TCC manages many but not all of the privileges shown to the user in System Settings > Privacy & Security. Local Network and Location are the two critical outliers that I’m aware of.

Oh, and that’s one of the reasons why tccreset won’t fix this.

After some more digging, I suspect that the information is stored in the various [Network Extension preference files]

That’s very much an implementation detail. You shouldn’t rely on the presence or format of those files.

fortunately, this was done in a VM

Oh, you already have a VM for testing this? Well, that makes it easy.

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Boost

Thomas Tempelmann OP

Oct ’24

Done: FB15568200

tdferreira OP

Jan ’25

I have a similar problem, but with a well known App... Google Chrome. I rejected the access to local network by mistake, and the toggle in "System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network" doesn't have any effect when I enable it.

Steps to reproduce:

Installed Google Chrome App in macOS 15.2.
Opened Chrome and tried to access a local network address
Got a prompt asking if Chrome should have permission to access the local network, replied No
Go back to "System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network" menu and tried to re-enable the local network access and it didn't work
Uninstalled Chrome using AppCleaner (also deleting all the related files from "~/Library/Application Support/Google")
App didn't disappear from "System Settings > Privacy & Security > Local Network" policies list.
Rebooted and the App is still listed there
Reinstalled Chrome and it didn't ask for permissions anymore
Tried to disable and then enable the local network access, it didn't work.

Tried creating a second user account, ran Chrome, accepted the permissions, worked. Tried logging in in Safe Boot with my user, to check if the toggle would have any effect, but also didn't work.

Also tried this: https://superuser.com/questions/526183/remove-applications-from-location-services-in-security-privacy-on-mac-os-x-10

But it doesn't work because apparently in macOS Sequoia we don't have permissions to edit any of those files in "/var/db/locationd/" even with sudo. Tried enabling the root user (https://support.apple.com/en-us/102367) to see if I could get around it, didn't work.

I believe this is clearly a bug that must be addressed by Apple. Would help if we could just have a way to remove the permissions for each App in that list, or if the tccutil would also reset the Local Network policies.

brokenribcage OP

This is the only way to reset it:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/local-network-access-nightmare.2448144/post-33698401