Hi everyone, I’m Jaswanth. My friends and I are students working on a project where we’ve developed a website and a companion app.
Here’s the key functionality:
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When two users enter a virtual room, one of them is prompted to download a desktop app.
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The app is built with Python and uses psutil to check for certain running processes.
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It does not send any data over the internet.
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It has a GUI that clearly shows the system is being monitored , it’s not hidden or running in the background silently.
We want to sign and notarize the app to make sure it runs on macOS without warning users. However, we’re concerned that since the app accesses system process information, it might be flagged as malicious.
Before we pay for the Apple Developer Program, we wanted to ask:
Will an app like this (which only reads running processes and does not exfiltrate or hide activity) be eligible for notarization?
Thanks in advance for any insights. We'd appreciate any clarity before moving forward.
Best, Jaswanth
Notarisation for macOS is not like App Review. Quoting Notarizing macOS software before distribution:
Notarize your macOS software to give users more confidence that the Developer ID-signed software you distribute has been checked by Apple for malicious components. Notarization of macOS software is not App Review. The Apple notary service is an automated system that scans your software for malicious content, checks for code-signing issues, and returns the results to you quickly.
Now, I can’t guarantee that your app will pass notarisation but, in general, there’s nothing unusual about a macOS app monitoring the user’s process list. There are numerous APIs for that (NSRunningApplication and libproc being the two most common) and numerous Mac apps that use those APIs to provide value for the user.
Indeed, my Mac is currently running QProcessDock, an app I wrote for myself that uses NSRunningApplication to display a list of running apps in a Dock-like interface. It passed notarisation just fine (-:
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