Apple is tightening macOS Full Disk Access controls, explicitly citing the danger of AI agents getting broad access to files, messages, mail, and browsing history.
Apple confirmed new restrictions on Full Disk Access, the macOS permission that lets apps read files, messages, mail, and browsing history. The company said increasingly capable AI agents make that level of access substantially riskier than when the permission model was designed.
The change effectively forces agent developers to request narrower, more auditable access rather than blanket system permissions, shifting the burden of trust-building onto them.
This is the first major platform vendor response that treats AI agents as a distinct security category requiring new OS-level guardrails, not just an app behavior problem. Any company building desktop AI agents now needs to redesign for permission scoping, and expect this pattern to spread to Windows and mobile.
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