Which apps have access to your camera, microphone and files?

How Mac privacy permissions work

macOS doesn't let an app reach your camera, your screen or your private files just because it is installed. The first time an app asks, macOS shows a prompt, and your answer is saved in a privacy database (often called TCC, for Transparency, Consent and Control). From then on the app gets the same answer without asking again.

That is convenient, but it means grants pile up. A video call app you tried once can still use the camera; a utility you allowed to control your Mac three years ago still can. System Settings shows each permission on its own page under Privacy & Security, so there's no single place to see what you have handed out.

Every app you allowed, one permission at a time

Privacy Access reads macOS's privacy databases, both your own and the system one, and groups what it finds by permission. Each section says in plain words what the permission lets an app do:

Under each one are the apps and command-line tools you allowed, with when the permission was last changed and a button to show the app in Finder. Apps you gave limited access, such as a selection of photos, are marked Limited, and the number you denied is shown alongside.

Permissions held by apps that are gone

Deleting an app doesn't remove its privacy permissions: the grant stays in the database, and a reinstall of the same app can pick it up again without a new prompt. Privacy Access marks every grant whose app is no longer installed, or whose tool is no longer on disk, and counts them at the top, so you can clear them out.

Taking a permission back

Each section has an Open in System Settings link that goes straight to that permission's page in Privacy & Security, where you switch an app off or remove it. Tidy My Mac never changes a grant itself: the privacy database is opened read-only, and permissions are changed only in System Settings, where macOS checks who is asking.

Location Services is the exception to the list: macOS keeps location permissions where only the system can read them, so Privacy Access doesn't list them, but it links to the Location Services page so you can check it there.

Know when the camera or microphone turns on

A permission says what an app may do; it doesn't say when it does it. Turn on Tell me when the camera or microphone turns on in Tidy My Mac's Settings and you get a notification each time one of them starts, naming the app when macOS reports which one it is. Privacy Access then keeps a list of recent camera and microphone use with how long each lasted. For apps you trust, such as your video call app, Always Allow for This App on the notification stops the alerts while still listing the uses.

Full Disk Access, and your privacy