Update to Notarization Prerequisites
December 23, 2019
In June, we announced that all Mac software distributed outside the Mac App Store must be notarized by Apple in order to run by default on macOS Catalina. In September, we temporarily adjusted the notarization prerequisites to make this transition easier and to protect users on macOS Catalina who continue to use older versions of software. Starting February 3, 2020, all submitted software must meet the original notarization prerequisites.
If you haven’t yet done so, upload your software to the notary service and review the developer log for warnings. These warnings will become errors starting February 3 and must be fixed in order to have your software notarized. Software notarized before February 3 will continue to run by default on macOS Catalina.
As a reminder, all installer packages must be signed since they may contain executable code. Disk images do not need to be signed, although signing them can help your users verify their contents.
Notarizing Your Mac Software for macOS Catalina
September 3, 2019
As a reminder, Mac software distributed outside the Mac App Store must be notarized by Apple in order to run on macOS Catalina. To make this transition easier and to protect users on macOS Catalina who continue to use older versions of software, we’ve adjusted the notarization prerequisites until January 2020.
You can now notarize Mac software that:
Doesn’t have the Hardened Runtime capability enabled.
Has components not signed with your Developer ID.
Doesn’t include a secure timestamp with your code-signing signature.
Was built with an older SDK.
Includes the com.apple.security.get-task-allow entitlement with the value set to any variation of true.
Make sure to submit all versions of your software. While Xcode 10 or later is still required to submit, you don’t need to rebuild or re-sign your software before submission.