Gatekeeper Warning

macOS shows this dialog the first time Aether launches:

"Aether" can't be opened because the developer cannot be verified.

This is Gatekeeper doing its job. Aether 0.1.0 is ad-hoc signed rather than notarised through the Apple Developer Program; the binary has no Apple-issued Developer ID backing it. The $99/year enrolment into the Developer Program costs real-world identity verification, which this release deliberately avoids.

Approving the app once is enough; macOS remembers the decision for that specific binary.

Terminal (fastest)

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Aether.app

This removes the quarantine flag set when the DMG was downloaded. macOS treats the app as locally-installed from that point and skips the Gatekeeper check entirely. Run it before the first launch and the warning never appears.

If Aether has been moved or reinstalled from a new DMG, rerun the command against the new path.

System Settings (no Terminal needed)

  1. Double-click Aether.app. Dismiss the "cannot be opened" dialog when it appears.
  2. Open System Settings (macOS 13 Ventura and newer) or System Preferences (macOS 12 Monterey).
  3. Go to Privacy & Security. On recent macOS this is in the left sidebar.
  4. Scroll to the Security section at the bottom. A line reads: "Aether was blocked to protect your Mac." Click the Open Anyway button next to it.
  5. Authenticate when prompted.
  6. Launch Aether again from Launchpad or Applications. A final confirmation dialog appears; click Open.

On older macOS releases, right-click → Open was an alternative bypass, but Apple removed that shortcut in recent versions. The Privacy & Security path is the current supported route.

Still Blocked?

A few reasons the above can fail:

  • The app was moved after first launch. macOS tracks the quarantine flag by path in some cases. Rerun xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine against the new location.
  • The DMG was modified in transit. Compare the SHA-256 on the download page against shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Aether-0.1.0-demo.dmg. A mismatch means the download is corrupt - redownload.
  • MDM policies block unsigned apps. Work-managed Macs sometimes forbid any app without a Developer ID. There is no user-side workaround; the device administrator must allow the binary explicitly.
  • Installation - the installation page where this warning first appears.
  • Crash Reports - where Aether writes logs if something goes wrong after launch.