These pages describe PrivacyFence 7.0.2. Download it · What changed
Install on macOS¶
Desktop mode is deprecated. PrivacyFence's desktop install, the one this page sets up, is deprecated in PrivacyFence 7 and will be removed in PrivacyFence 8. Its built-in sign-in works only in organization mode and the Docker image. See Moving to organization mode for the two ways forward and for what to check before a later upgrade to 8.x: start 7.x once and look for "Ready for PrivacyFence 8" on the Admin page.
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¶
- Double-click the DMG. It holds two files: PrivacyFence.pkg and PrivacyFence.mcpb.
- 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_privacyfenceservice account, moves the daemon under that account as a LaunchDaemon, and registers the companion (the menu-bar icon) to start in each login session. - Log out and back in once. The installer adds you to the
_privacyfencegroup, 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, and never starts it on a separated install (the daemon belongs to launchd and its own account).
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.
The rest, including organization mode, is in Connect Claude Desktop.
Connect Claude Code¶
Claude Code talks to the daemon's local /mcp endpoint with your own bearer token. On macOS the
URL is in /Library/Application Support/PrivacyFence/handoff/mcp_url and the token comes from
/Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/MacOS/PrivacyFenceApp --print-mcp-token, run from your
own account after logging back in. The full command is in
Connect Claude Code.
Troubleshooting¶
| What you see | What to do |
|---|---|
| No menu-bar icon after logging back in | Double-click PrivacyFence in /Applications. |
--print-mcp-token or the companion cannot reach the daemon |
Log out and back in, then run the status command below. |
| The daemon is stopped | Menu-bar icon → Start PrivacyFence…. |
| You cannot reach the companion's menu at all | /Applications/PrivacyFenceApp.app/Contents/MacOS/PrivacyFenceApp --print-sign-in-link prints a one-time link; the companion asks you to confirm it before it can approve anything. |
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.