Hello everyone,
I'm a new developer who just finished building my app. I'm now preparing to submit it to the App Store but wanted to beta-test it first via TestFlight.
During the upload process, I encountered an error prompting me to add sandbox entitlements, which I did. The app successfully made it to TestFlight, and I invited myself and a few fellow developers to test it. However, we're running into an issue:
On first launch, the app displays a popup directing users to Privacy & Security > Accessibility to grant permissions.
The sandboxed version does not show the app as a toggle in Accessibility settings.
Manually adding the app via the + button and selecting it directly doesn’t seem to resolve the permission issue.
I understand that I may need additional entitlements depending on the app's functionality, but I'm unsure which ones are required. Specifically:
Which entitlement controls whether the app appears in Accessibility settings?
Additionally:
How can I test these permission workflows locally (without re-uploading to TestFlight) to verify fixes before resubmitting?
Any guidance on debugging this—whether related to entitlements, sandboxing, or local testing—would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
The sandboxed version does not show the app as a toggle in Accessibility settings.
Right. This may well be a showstopping problem:
-
The Mac App Store requires that all apps be sandboxed.
-
Sandboxed app cannot use the Accessibility APIs [1].
What are you using the Accessibility APIs for? That’s important because for some uses cases there are alternative paths that are compatible with the App Sandbox.
Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"
[1] Something we call out in Protecting user data with App Sandbox.