Subject: bug#37551: [PATCH]: Update privacy usage descriptions for macOS 10.15 Catalina (nextstep)

From: Artyom Loenko <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 11:21:05 +0100

Hello there,

Apple has updated requirements related to privacy on macOS Catalina. Now we have to specify usage descriptions for the following items to be able to access these folders and volumes:

- NSDesktopFolderUsageDescription;
- NSDocumentsFolderUsageDescription;
- NSDownloadsFolderUsageDescription;
- NSRemovableVolumesUsageDescription.

(https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/information_property_list/)

Otherwise, it is impossible to work with files in these folders (especially, when Desktop and Documents are synchronised with iCloud). Full Disk Access permission does not help in this case. The only workaround right now is to run Emacs from Terminal.app to inherit Terminal.app permissions.

P.S. There is a simple script that simulates the same behaviour if you want to check how it works: https://gist.github.com/dive/f64c645a9086afce8e5dd2590071dbf9

This is a simple patch to fix it (these changes are backwards compatible, and previous macOS versions ignore these values.):

—————

 nextstep/templates/Info.plist.in | 8 ++++++++
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/nextstep/templates/Info.plist.in b/nextstep/templates/Info.plist.in
index c1e50a8409..70f641cc99 100644
--- a/nextstep/templates/Info.plist.in
+++ b/nextstep/templates/Info.plist.in
@@ -677,5 +677,13 @@ along with GNU Emacs.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 	<string>YES</string>
         <key>NSAppleEventsUsageDescription</key>
         <string>Emacs requires permission to send AppleEvents to other applications.</string>
+	<key>NSDesktopFolderUsageDescription</key>
+	<string>Emacs requires permission to access the Desktop folder.</string>
+	<key>NSDocumentsFolderUsageDescription</key>
+	<string>Emacs requires permission to access the Documents folder.</string>
+	<key>NSDownloadsFolderUsageDescription</key>
+	<string>Emacs requires permission to access the Downloads folder.</string>
+	<key>NSRemovableVolumesUsageDescription</key>
+	<string>Emacs requires permission to access files on Removable Volumes.</string>
 </dict>
 </plist>

—————

--
Artem