Giving the macOS service access to your files
If you run SyncThemAll as a background service on macOS, it may report "Permission denied" on folders that clearly belong to you — Documents, Desktop, Downloads, iCloud Drive, an external disk.
Nothing is broken, and it is not a permissions mistake on your side. macOS deliberately keeps background services away from your personal files until you say otherwise, and it needs you to say so by hand, once.
First: do you actually need the service?
Most people don't. There are two different ways to have SyncThemAll work without a window, and only one of them involves any of this:
| What you want | Use this |
|---|---|
| Sync keeps running while I'm logged in, without keeping the window open | Autostart — Settings → System → Run in background and Start at login. No admin password, no security settings, no extra steps. |
| Sync must run even when nobody is logged in — a Mac that reboots on its own and keeps working | The service — and then this page applies. |
If the first row describes you, turn on autostart and skip the rest of this page. The service exists for machines that work with nobody sitting at them, and that capability is what costs an extra setup step.
Why macOS asks this of you
macOS protects certain folders — Desktop, Documents, Downloads, iCloud Drive, removable and network volumes — with a system called TCC. When an app accesses those folders for the first time, macOS shows you a dialog: "SyncThemAll would like to access files in your Documents folder." You allow it once and never think about it again.
A service can't take part in that conversation. It starts before anyone logs in and runs outside your session, so there is no screen to show a dialog on and nobody to answer it. macOS doesn't guess in these situations — it simply refuses, and keeps refusing.
Being an administrator doesn't change this. TCC is not about file permissions; even a service running with full system privileges is blocked. This is the same reason backup tools like Backblaze, Carbon Copy Cloner and Arq ask you for the same setting.
So the permission has to come from you, directly, in System Settings. That's what the rest of this page is about.
Granting access
SyncThemAll tells you exactly which file to add, so you don't have to go looking for it.
- Open SyncThemAll and click Service in the left sidebar.
- In the dialog, click Open settings. macOS opens Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access.
- Go back to SyncThemAll and click Copy path. This copies the location of the service program.
- In System Settings, click the + button under the list. A file picker appears.
- Press ⌘ + Shift + G, paste the path, press Return, then click Open.
- Make sure the switch next to the entry you just added is on.
- Back in SyncThemAll, click Stop and then Start on the service.
That last step matters: macOS applies a new permission to programs the next time they start, so the running service won't notice the change until it is restarted. The Stop and Start buttons sit right there in the same dialog.
The banner that said "The service can't see your files yet" should now be gone. If it isn't, check that the switch in step 6 is really on, and that you added the file from step 3 rather than the SyncThemAll app itself — see below.
Why not just add the SyncThemAll app?
Because the service is a separate program with its own identity, and macOS tracks these permissions per program. Granting access to the app does not pass it on to the service, and vice versa. The path you copy in step 3 points inside the application package, at the program the service actually runs:
SyncThemAll.app/Contents/Resources/engine/syncthemall
Finder normally hides the inside of application packages, which is why step 5 uses ⌘ + Shift + G to jump straight to the path. If you'd rather drag the file into the list, use Show in Finder in the SyncThemAll dialog instead of Copy path — it opens the folder with that file already selected.
What changes once access is granted
The service can now read and write your folders — including the ones you sync. Two consequences are worth knowing about:
Files created by the service belong to the system, not to you. If the service downloads a file into your Documents folder and you later try to delete or rename it in Finder, macOS will ask for your password. That's normal: the file was created by a system-level program. Deleting the same file from inside SyncThemAll works without prompting.
The permission stays with that exact program. If you move SyncThemAll to a different folder, or reinstall it in a way that replaces the program, you may need to add it again. Ordinary updates keep the permission.
Removing the access later
Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access, select the entry, and either switch it off or remove it with the − button. The service keeps running; it just stops seeing your personal folders. If you uninstall the service from SyncThemAll, remove the entry too — it has nothing left to point at.
Still stuck?
If the banner persists after a restart of the service, or the service reports permission errors on a folder that isn't in the protected list, contact us with the folder path and what the Service dialog shows. That combination tells us immediately whether macOS is blocking the access or something else is.