Security & Privacy Items Removal

Is it possible to remove an entry in the “Security & Privacy” section of System Preferences? Specifically, Privacy/Contacts (see screenshot). I’m looking to remove the “Sync Folders Remote Backups” entry.


Little bit of background. As one of my backups I use rsync commands via Automator. As I was changing the data source for this particular backup I entered an extra “space” between two lines of the code and ended up with this “Sync Folders Remote Backups” entry in a number of “Security & Privacy” locations (Calendars, Reminders and Contacts).


I was able to remove the entry from the Calendars and Reminders sections using the “tccutil reset Calendars” and “tccutil reset Reminders” command in Terminal.


When I tried to use the same command for Contacts, “tccutil reset Contacts” I get the following error: “tccutil: Failed to reset Contacts.”


When I tried to get the “id” of the entry using this command: osascript -e 'id of app "Sync Folders Remote Backups”’, Terminal returned: com.apple.automator.Sync-Folders-Remote-Backups.


Trying again with the command: “tccutil reset Contacts com.apple.automator.Sync-Folders-Remote-Backups” also returns a failure: tccutil: Failed to reset Contacts approval status for com.apple.automator.Sync-Folders-Remote-Backups


Any ideas anyone? I know I can simply “uncheck” the box, but I’d really like to remove the entry.


Monterey 12.6.6, 2020 M1, MacBook Pro.


Posted on May 23, 2023 6:21 AM

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Posted on May 23, 2023 8:05 AM

When you use low-level command-line tools, you are at the mercy of ancient identifiers that were never meant for end users to see. Back when the tccutil tool and its database was designed, there was no "Contacts" app. There was only "Address Book". So that's the name you have to keep using. Try this instead:


tccutil reset AddressBook

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Question marked as Best reply

May 23, 2023 8:05 AM in response to MargeHomer

When you use low-level command-line tools, you are at the mercy of ancient identifiers that were never meant for end users to see. Back when the tccutil tool and its database was designed, there was no "Contacts" app. There was only "Address Book". So that's the name you have to keep using. Try this instead:


tccutil reset AddressBook

Security & Privacy Items Removal

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