These pages describe PrivacyFence 4.6.1. Download it · What changed

Install on macOS¶

Start with Getting started if you haven't: it covers what you need and what happens after the install.

Requirements¶

• macOS 13 or later on an Apple silicon Mac. The installer refuses an older macOS and Intel Macs (Platform support).
• An administrator password.
• Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or another MCP client.

Download and verify¶

Download PrivacyFence-<version>.dmg from privacyfence.eu/download. The page lists each file's SHA-256; compare it before opening the file:

shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/PrivacyFence-<version>.dmg

Stable releases are signed and notarized by Apple, so Gatekeeper opens them without warnings. Pre-release builds may not be.

Install¶

1. Double-click the DMG. It holds two files: PrivacyFence.pkg and PrivacyFence.mcpb.
2. Double-click PrivacyFence.pkg and follow the installer. It asks for your administrator password as part of the install and uses it to set everything up at once: it installs /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app, creates the _privacyfence service account, moves the daemon under that account as a LaunchDaemon, and registers the companion (the menu-bar icon) to start in each login session.
3. Log out and back in once. The installer adds you to the _privacyfence group, and macOS only picks up group membership at login. Until then neither the companion nor your AI client can reach the daemon.

The installer never fails because of the privilege-separation step. If that step could not finish, the app is still installed but not yet separated. The next time the daemon starts (the Claude Desktop extension starts it on such an install), it asks for your administrator password to finish the setup, and asks again at every start until it is done; until then it does not serve. You can also finish it by hand with the enable command in Troubleshooting.

Installing over an existing install: download the newer DMG and run its PrivacyFence.pkg. Your data is kept, and the installer restarts the daemon on the new version. There is nothing to quit first.

First start¶

After you log back in, the PrivacyFence icon appears in the menu bar. The companion opens the Passkeys page for you until you have added a passkey; follow the first approval from there.

Double-clicking PrivacyFence in /Applications opens Approvals through the companion (ADR 0031). If the menu-bar icon is not running, that starts it; if it is, you are asked to confirm first.

Connect Claude Desktop¶

Double-click PrivacyFence.mcpb on the DMG. Claude Desktop opens and offers to install the extension; accept. There is nothing to configure: the extension finds the running daemon by itself. On a separated install it never starts the daemon: the daemon belongs to launchd and its own account. If the daemon is stopped, the extension waits for it and logs that you should choose Start PrivacyFence… from the menu-bar icon.

The first time a tool reads or saves a file outside Claude's own folders, macOS may ask "Claude would like to access files in your Downloads folder". The extension runs inside Claude, so macOS attributes the access to Claude. Allow it once per folder.

Connect Claude Code¶

Claude Code talks to the daemon's local /mcp endpoint with your own bearer token. From your own account, after logging back in:

PF_HANDOFF="/Library/Application Support/PrivacyFence/handoff"
claude mcp add --transport http --scope user privacyfence "$(cat "$PF_HANDOFF/mcp_url")" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $(/Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/MacOS/PrivacyFenceApp --print-mcp-token)"

mcp_url holds http://127.0.0.1:8765/mcp unless you changed web.port. --print-mcp-token mints your account's token the first time and prints the same one afterwards. Any other Streamable HTTP MCP client takes the same URL and header. Claude Code cannot read local files through PrivacyFence the way the Claude Desktop extension does; see How it works for how it uploads a file instead.

Troubleshooting¶

Check the whole install with status, and finish or repair the setup with enable:

sudo /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/Resources/scripts/macos_privilege_separation.sh status
sudo /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/Resources/scripts/macos_privilege_separation.sh enable

Logs, data locations and start/stop commands are in Platform support. Problems common to all platforms are in Getting started.

Uninstall¶

sudo /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/Resources/scripts/macos_privilege_separation.sh uninstall

This stops PrivacyFence, removes the LaunchDaemon, the companion and /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app, and keeps your data in /Library/Application Support/PrivacyFence together with the _privacyfence account. Installing again picks it all back up (ADR 0042).

Purge (delete your data)¶

sudo /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/Resources/scripts/macos_privilege_separation.sh uninstall --purge

This does everything uninstall does and also deletes the data directory (connector sign-ins, policy, passkeys, audit log) and the _privacyfence account and group. It cannot be undone.

The script lives inside the app, and a plain uninstall removes the app. To purge after a plain uninstall, install PrivacyFence again and then run uninstall --purge.