I'm unable to open .bib files on macOS Sequoia

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Level 1

4 points

I'm unable to open .bib files on macOS Sequoia

.bib files are plain text files which store bibliographic information allowing the automatic typesetting of references & reference lists using BibTeX (and similar systems) within a LaTeX document (see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BibTeX). Most journals allow direct downloading of .bib files to allow for straightforward referencing of the given article; google books also provides .bib files if you search for a book.

My common workflow (and that of most others I know) is to download said .bib files (which contain bibliographic information for one document), open it, copy the content and paste it into a .bib file which contains all the citation information for whatever document the article/book is being referenced in.

Recently there has been some change in MacOS which prevents me from opening .bib files from the finder. I always get the error message "Apple could not verify “nameHere.bib” is free of malware that may harm your Mac or compromise your privacy." This can be worked around by manually changing the extension to e.g. .txt, but is extremely frustrating to have to do this several times a day. Is there any way of removing this absurd restriction?

[Re-Titled by Moderator]

Original Title: Opening .bib files on MacOS

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.5

Posted on Jun 17, 2025 2:58 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

dialabrain

Level 10

136,103 points

Jun 17, 2025 3:55 AM in response to adam-lee

adam-lee wrote:

It used to be the case that double clicking or cmd + enter in the finder would open the file in TextEdit, from which I could copy the content, but this no longer works (open with TextEdit gives the same error message).

FWIW, when you dismiss the error message after trying to open a .bib file in TextEdit, Open System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down and choose "Open Anyway". It will ask for your admin password. Once you do that, you can open .bib files by double-clicking.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,210 points

Jun 17, 2025 4:30 AM in response to adam-lee

But the point is that this is unnecessarily complex

That may be, but we can't do anything about it. Contact Apple.

I was also wondering if dragging the file into an app Dock Icon would bypass the quarantine. I tried to download a sample .bib file to check, but I found out Sublime Text will handle that file type, so couldn't verify.

Indeed I can open .bib files using vscode,

If you have an app that has registered the ability to open that file type, you should be able to change which app defaults and not get the quarantine warning. I changed .bib files to open with BBEdit, double-clicking did not invoke the quarantine warning. I have VS Code installed and it does not appear it has registered that file type handling. Being able to open a file and registering to the OS that it is capable of handling that file type are two different things.

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Answer 3

dialabrain

Level 10

136,103 points

Jun 17, 2025 3:34 AM in response to adam-lee

Just to add, I can drag a .bib file into an empty browser tab and it will open.

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Answer 4

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,210 points

Jun 17, 2025 3:12 AM in response to adam-lee

You need an app that registers the ability to handle .bib files.

I think you can open the files from within an app using File > Open.

Otherwise, you would need to remove the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute from each file.

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Answer 5

dialabrain

Level 10

136,103 points

Jun 17, 2025 5:53 AM in response to VikingOSX

Once I allowed TextEdit to open .bib files in Privacy & Security, I can double-click on them, show them in Quick Look and in Finder Preview. 😎

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Answer 6

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,386 points

Jun 17, 2025 5:47 AM in response to adam-lee

I have MacTeX 2025 installed (including BibDesk 1.9.7) in Sequoia v15.5 and a double-click of a .bib file opens it in TeXShop v5.53. The contents are also viewable in Quick Look by pressing the space bar.

Additional applications that I have installed, and from the Finder's Open With menu, indicating that they may open the text .bib file:

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Answer 7

dialabrain

Level 10

136,103 points

Jun 17, 2025 3:22 AM in response to adam-lee

FWIW, Bean, CotEditor, TextStudio & LibreOffice are just some of the apps that will open .bib files.

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Answer 8

adam-lee Author

Level 1

4 points

Jun 17, 2025 3:38 AM in response to Barney-15E

Indeed I can open .bib files using vscode, for example (otherwise there would be much bigger outcry about this, since LaTeX is used by basically the entire academic community in mathematics, statistics, computer science, economics etc.). But the point is that this is unnecessarily complex -- I only want these files to live temporarily in my downloads folder until I can extract the information and paste it into the "master" .bib file.

It used to be the case that double clicking or cmd + enter in the finder would open the file in TextEdit, from which I could copy the content, but this no longer works (open with TextEdit gives the same error message).

Thanks for pointing out the extended attribute which causes this behaviour; I can now workaround this.

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