How to Open OS X Apps That Are “From An Unidentified Developer”

One of the security features of OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion” is to only allow Apps from the “Mac App Store” or by an identified developer to run on your Mac. This brief tutorial will show you how to run those Apps anyway, or the disable the new “feature” entirely.

  1. As illustrated in the screenshot below, I tried to run the App SABnzbd+ but wasn’t “allowed” to by OS X – because it was created by an unidentified developer. Not helpful.

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  3. The “quick” and safer way to run the App is to locate it in your Applications folder, right-click (ctrl+click) the App, and select Open. This will run the App regardless as to who the developer may be.

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  5. If you would like to disable this new security feature so that you’re never “warned” or “stopped” from running programs that were created by unidentified developers, open your System Preferences from the Apple Menu, and select Security & Privacy.

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  7. Select the General tab, and click on the “lock” in the bottom left corner.

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  9. Enter your password when prompted.
  10. In the section titled Allow applications downloaded from: – select Anywhere. You’ll immediately be presented with a ‘warning’ window telling you how you can open individual Apps without disabling this feature entirely (which would have been nice to know way back in step #1). Click Allow From Anywhere. You can exit out of the System Preferences now.

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