How do I stop Mac OS Monterey from verifying every time I open a Microsoft or Adobe app?

The answer you received is incorrect. The verification is only supposed to happen once. Not every single time you open a third party app.

The solution is to uninstall the app causing the repeated verification step and reinstalling it. It will then verify on the first launch as a "new" app, but then shouldn't afterwards.

Some apps will require a re-verification. Such as every time you apply an update to Office or the Adobe apps. But it should still only do that once after the update has been applied.

What you're experiencing is unusual. The only time I geta verifying notification is when I update or upgrade the system and then it's only once.

Have you installed and run any "cleaning", "optimizing", "speed-up", anti-virus or VPN apps on your Mac?

Give this a try: boot into Safe Mode according to How to use safe mode on your Mac and see if the problem persists. Reboot normally and test again.

NOTE: Safe Mode boot can take up to 3 - 5 minutes as it's doing the following; 

• Verifies your startup disk and attempts to repair directory issues, if needed

• Loads only required kernel extensions (prevents 3rd party kernel/extensions from loading)

• Prevents Startup Items and Login Items from opening automatically

• Disables user-installed fonts 

• Deletes font caches, kernel cache, and other system cache files

I also had this problem, and finally stumbled onto the solution (for me at least). The issue seems to be the old Fusion Drive in my 2017 iMac, and very slow access to the spinning disk section of the drive. It was not difficult to get a new SSD external drive, install MacOS there and use it as my startup disk. Access is about 20 times faster with a new USB 3.2 connected drive, and would have been even faster if if I had splurged for a Thunderbolt drive. Verifying Word, Photoshop, and other apps now takes about ten seconds.

I followed these instructions:

How to Setup and Use an External SSD as y… - Apple Community

Hope this helps!

If your Adobe and Microsoft applications came thru the App Store, you might uninstall and then re-download from the app store and see if the verification routine ends. If not consider the following:

I suspect the "Security Policy" for your Macintosh HD may need changing. Monterey setting as installed on my Mac Studio was at "Full Security". To use a certain software program, before I loaded any Microsoft or Adobe programs, I had to change to the "Reduced Security" setting. Reduced security setting allows more flexibility for the user (only) to make changes to the OS like manual delete of old software, add images for screen saving. It eliminated for me the verification for a HP printer driver. Since then I've added more software including adobe and Microsoft with no verifications after the initial load.

The following file tells how. Go and see what your current setting is, you do not have to change, but if you use the setting recommended, that should eliminate the verification. You can always change back to Full, but you may get prompts at launch, but try that too and see if they are eliminated. Let the community know how this works out please.

The process bar tells you which app the OS is verifying. Such as this one after Word has had an update applied.

After an update, it's normal for a fair number of app to see this once after the update has been applied. Like any of the Adobe Suite, Microsoft Office (any flavor), XCode, Quark XPress and others.

But if it does this every single time you launch an app, then it needs to be uninstalled and then reinstalled.

"The solution is to uninstall the app causing the repeated verification step and reinstalling it. It will then verify on the first launch as a "new" app, but then shouldn't afterwards."

Great advice. But how can I figure out which app is the offending app?

The plain fact is that this is an absolute unnecessary nuisance built by Apple…

It has to do with security. Note that this verification doesn't happen for anything acquired from the App Store (with the exception of Xcode), or any of the apps installed by the OS. For third party apps, it depends on what items are installed, and where. Such as the root Library folder. That means large apps like the Adobe/Microsoft suites and Quark will be subject to verification when installed or updated.

So why Xcode, since it is Apple's own product? Guessing here, but that likely goes back a couple or three years to an issue where folks were downloading Xcode from unofficial servers. It was found those "shared" installers also contained malware that was then compiled into every single app you created with it. So Apple checks Xcode to make sure it's a clean copy.

Turn off automatic updates for your Microsoft and Adobe products.

Once a month, when you have time, update them and open the updated apps. For the rest of the month they will open without verification.

You could also ask Microsoft and Adobe to stop invalidating their apps when they update them. I have many apps that update quite often, but I have never seen a new validation dialog for them.

Greetings creativepassion,

We see you have questions on app verification and are happy to help.

This process will occur any time you open an app that you obtained from outside the Mac App Store, as described at our site Safely open apps on your Mac. Opening apps installed from the Mac App Store would not show verification messages.

We hope this helps!

You're not reading it correctly. The issue is where an app is verified by the OS every single time it gets launched, whether it's had an update applied or not. Only uninstalling and reinstalling the app with fix it.

When the Adobe and Microsoft apps get an update, yes, they will be verified by the OS again. But it should only be once (for each updated app), until the next update.

However, you are missing the entire point. MAC users do not want headaches like this, that directly affect work flow, equalling direct loss of revenue.

I shut down my in-home business of 20+ years at the end of 2021. The few times I had an issue with what's being discussed here was fixed by uninstalling the affected apps and reinstalling them. The problem never repeated for any of those I reinstalled. My loss of time was minimal.

You will lose customers, you are losing customers because of it. I am losing customers because of it!

I'm not, and won't lose anything. I don't, and have never worked for Apple.

Per a couple of things mentioned here, more than once. A Mac with a hard drive will be very slow finishing these verifications. A Mac with an SSD will be done in a tenth of the time, or less. Have you uninstalled the affected app(s) entirely and then reinstalled them? Simply installing over what's there doesn't work. It must be uninstalled, first. If you're still having the issue after that, have you reinstalled the OS?

Microsoft and Adobe update their apps at least once a month. So, you would expect to see this fairly frequently for Office and Adobe apps.

Could it be that you are seeing this app verification not every time you launch one of the apps but once for each app about once a month?

The only issue I am experiencing with this behaviour of late is that the app verification process seems to be taking anywhere up to 60 seconds. A marked slow down on previous months/years, since Apple first introduced this.

You may need to change your system security policy. Go to Security and Privacy in System preference. click on Enable System Extensions, select at Reduced Security, and Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers. That should solve.

Each time an application is updated whether manually, or in the case of MS Office, by autoupdate (e.g. Word 16.63 -> 16.63.1), the first launch (not every launch) of that application after the update must be reverified by the operating system security.

This is my experience on macOS Monterey 12.4 with Office 2021 for Mac (16.63.1) and the elapsed time of that one-time verification process is under 4 seconds. That is not an issue for me.

This has me seriously researching upgrading to Windows 11 and dumping the Mac.