⚠️ A Quick Note About macOS ⚠️

[AlexandrePTJ]

Or: Why it’s kind of a pain to share this app with Mac users

Hey! If you're trying to run this app on macOS and you're getting weird security warnings, I wanted to explain what's going on, and why it's not as simple as it should be.

I'm just a hobbyist developer. I work on this project because I enjoy it, I like learning, and I hope someone out there finds them useful. I don’t make money from this stuff. It's free, and it's meant to stay that way.

But if I want to distribute a macOS app without triggering Apple’s scary “unidentified developer” warnings, I have to enroll in the Apple Developer Program. That costs $99 every year. Not a one-time fee. Recurring, annually. Just for the privilege of code signing and notarizing an app so it plays nicely with macOS Gatekeeper.

That means:

• If I don’t pay, users get warning popups.
• If I do pay, I’m basically spending money to give away free software.
• There’s no “free tier” or exception for open source projects like mine.

I get that Apple wants to keep users safe. But as a solo dev working on passion projects, it’s a bit of a wall. Most other platforms don't do this. Linux just works, and Windows users usually don't run into the same level of roadblocks.

So If you’re on macOS, you might need to do a little manual work to open the app:

1. Right-click the app and choose Open.
2. Confirm you want to open it.
3. Optionally, you can run xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine /path/to/app to stop Gatekeeper from blocking it in the future.

I know it’s annoying. I wish I could make this smoother. But unless Apple rethinks its policy (or I start charging for my apps, which I really don’t want to do), this is kind of the reality for small-time devs like me.

Thanks for understanding and for checking out the project.