Macbook Air won't open a csv file.
Double clicking in finder gives the message:
Message:
Apple could not verify “airline_passengers.csv” is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy.
This is simple csv file. How do I open it?
and what's up with the 'Move to trash' option?
Macbook Air M3, Sequoia 15.0
MacBook Air 15″, macOS 15.0
Fixed:
I right clicked on the csv document and selected Get Info > Open with :
and set to Microsoft Excel and "Use this application to open all documents like this one" > Change All...
It seems using the Finder's version of Open With > Microsoft Excel is not capable of setting this.
It has to be set in the Get Info dialog.
That's a bug.
How did you create this file in the first place?
I think this is caused by creating a file using a Mac App Store app and then deleting that app. The document retains its quarantine state and that triggers the Gatekeeper dialog. At least, that's my theory.
It's just a CSV file. So save a new copy with a new name and delete the old one.
CSV files are text files and can be opened with any of the command-line editors, with the command-line cat command, or with GUI tools such as (free tier) BBEdit. Or Apple Numbers, or various other tools. Open BBEdit, or Numbers, or whatever, and then import (open) the CSV data.
I don’t know if CSV has an associated app in a default configuration, so double-clicking on what amounts to a text file (and triggering Gatekeeper) probably won’t go where you want.
The problem is in Finder.
The message appears after double clicking in Finder. Finder won’t open an application to view the file.
The csv opens fine in excel, textedit, numbers.
I’ve tried Open with… in a variety of apps - Finder refuses to open the file.
It opens just fine from File> Open within the app.
I have the same issue what finally did it is close to what you suggested and it fixed it for me. Get info> then selected Excel > then change all. Now I don't get the annoying popup
Finder will block you from opening a CSV as an app. Because it isn’t one.
If some app is set to handle a CSV in Finder (Get Info), then that tool (Numbers, whatever) should be able to open this CSV file.
If nothing is set to handle CSV, then a double-click will try to invoke the file as an executable. And will get blocked, because a CSV can’t be signed or notarized.
It has been possible to remove the quarantine attribute from the file, but the rules here keep tightening. And again, this isn’t an app, so it can’t be opened as an app, which usually means nothing is configured to open the CSV file oGet Info) if it gets double-clicked.
To remove the quarantine attribute (which might not be enough, I don’t have macOS 15.0 handy to check), launch Terminal.app and use the following command:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/file.csv
You can use the following part of the command, with a space added at the end:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine
and then drag the CSV file into the Terminal window, and Terminal.app will fill in the file path. Press return.
Related:
Down load Numbers off of the app store (it's free) and see if it will open it.
Mac won't open csv
