The Invisible Privacy Database
Modern versions of macOS place a heavy emphasis on user privacy. When an application wants to access your microphone, camera, contacts, location, or full disk drive, it must present a popup asking for your explicit permission.
If you click “Don’t Allow,” the app is permanently blocked from that resource. If you click “Allow,” the app has permanent access.
Usually, you manage these permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security. However, there are times when this graphical interface breaks. An app might crash immediately upon opening because it thinks it has camera access, but the system database is corrupted. Or, you might be a software developer who needs to repeatedly test a new app’s initial permission popup.
To completely clear out these saved permissions and force macOS to “forget” what an app is allowed to do, you can use the terminal command tccutil (Transparency, Consent, and Control Utility).
Step 1: Understanding the tccutil Syntax
The Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) subsystem is the invisible database that manages all privacy popups on your Mac.
The tccutil command allows you to interact with this database, primarily to reset it.
The Syntax:
tccutil reset [Service] [Bundle Identifier]
- Service: The specific hardware or data category you want to reset (e.g., Camera, Microphone, ScreenCapture).
- Bundle Identifier (Optional): The specific application you want to reset (e.g.,
com.microsoft.teams). If you omit this, it resets the service for every app on your Mac.
Step 2: Resetting a Specific Service for All Apps
Let’s say your Mac’s camera has stopped working entirely. Zoom, FaceTime, and Chrome all show a black screen, even though they say they have permission.
You can force macOS to delete every single saved camera permission on the system. Open the Terminal app (in Applications > Utilities) and type:
tccutil reset Camera
Press Enter. The terminal will confirm it successfully reset the TCC database for that service.
The next time you open Zoom, it will act like it is the first time you’ve ever used it and present a fresh “Zoom would like to access the Camera” popup, often fixing underlying corruption.
(Note: Other common services include Microphone, ScreenCapture, AddressBook, and Calendar. They are case-sensitive).
Step 3: Finding an App’s Bundle Identifier
Resetting the entire camera database is destructive. It is usually better to reset permissions for one specific application.
To do this, you need the app’s internal “Bundle Identifier,” which is usually formatted like a reverse website URL (e.g., com.apple.Safari).
If you don’t know the bundle ID for an app (like Slack), you can find it using this terminal command (replace “Slack.app” with your app’s name):
osascript -e 'id of app "Slack"'
The terminal will return the ID, which is usually com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap.
Step 4: Resetting Permissions for a Single App
Now that you have the bundle identifier, you can reset a specific permission for that specific app.
To force Slack to ask for Microphone permission again, you would type:
tccutil reset Microphone com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap
If you want to completely wipe the slate clean and revoke all permissions (camera, microphone, notifications, screen recording) for Slack simultaneously, you can replace the Service name with the word All:
tccutil reset All com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap
Step 5: When tccutil Fails (Full Disk Access)
There is one major limitation to the tccutil command. For extreme security reasons, Apple does not allow the terminal to reset the Full Disk Access or Files and Folders permissions.
If a terminal script could grant or revoke full disk access, a malicious virus could use it to silently take over your Mac’s hard drive.
If you try to run tccutil reset SystemPolicyAllFiles, the terminal will return an error stating “tccutil: Failed to reset.”
To fix Full Disk Access issues, you have no choice but to open the graphical System Settings, navigate to Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access, highlight the broken app, click the minus (-) button to remove it, and then click the plus (+) button to add it back manually.