How To Turn On/Off SIP (System Integrity Protection) On Mac OS

When you install mac software, you may encounter a warning message like “XXX” cannot be opened because of a problem. Please contact the developer to confirm that “XXX” can be used with the macOS version. You may need to reinstall the application. Be sure to install any available updates for this application and macOS. This article will tell you how to fix it.

1. How To Fix This Error.

1. The reason for this problem may be that your Mac SIP system is not turned off.
2. Now let’s take a look at how to check whether the MAC has turned off SIP.
3. If the Mac SIP is not turned off, this article will tell you how to turn off it.

1.1 How To Check Mac SIP Status.

1. Open a terminal in macOS.
2. Run the command csrutil status in the terminal, then you can get the macOS SIP status from the command output.

   $ csrutil status
   System Integrity Protection status: disabled.

3. If the value is disabled, it means the macOS SIP is turned off.
4. You can also get the macOS SIP status using the macOS System Information tool.
5. There are 2 methods to open the macOS System Information tool.
6. Press the Option key, and mouse click the Apple icon —> System Information… menu item on the screen top left corner at the same time.
7. Or you can open a Mac Finder window, then click the Applications —> Utilities —> System Information.
8. In the System Information window, click the Software item on the left side, then you can see the System Integrity Protection status value on the window right side.

1.2 How To Go To MacOS Recovery Mode.

1. To enable/disable SIP, you need to go to the macOS recovery mode.

1.2.1 For Physical Mac Computer.

1. If you use a physical mac computer, you can press and hold command + R until the progress bar appears when starting the mac, and then release it. Now the MAC enters recovery mode.
2. Select the user’s icon, then click Next.
3. Enter the user password on the next page, and then click Continue.
4. If you see the Languages window, then you can select your desired language, and click the arrow button under it.

1.2.2 For VirtualBox macOS Virtual Machine.

1. If you use macOS on VirtualBox virtual machine, you need to press the key (for example ESC, F12, F8) that can direct you to the PC’s BIOS settings when you restart the macOS virtual machine. This will bring you to the virtual machine’s BIOS.
2. Move the up/down arrow to select the Boot Manager.
3. In the Boot Manager window, select the EFI Internal Shell menu and press the Enter key to go to the UEFI Interactive Shell console.
4. Press the ESC key immediately, and then you will stay at the EFI Internal Shell console.
5. Run the command FS2:, this will bring you to the FS2 interactive shell.
6. Then run the command cd com.apple.recovery.boot to go to the recovery boot image directory.
7. But you may encounter the error message like cd: ‘FS2:\com.apple.recovery.boot’ is not a directory.
8. And when you run the dir command, there is only one kernelcore file in it.
9. If you meet such conditions, you can restart your macOS virtual machine and go to the macOS screen as normal.
10. Open a terminal and run the command sudo nvram recovery-boot-mode=unused && sudo shutdown -r now to restart the macOS virtual machine and go to the recovery mode.

1.3 How To Enable Or Disable macOS SIP.

1. Now it may come to the macOS Utilities window, click the Utilities —> Terminal menu item.
2. Then input the command csrutil enable to turn on SIP, or input the command csrutil disable to turn off SIP.
3. Now, you can click the mac icon —> Restart menu item on the top left corner to restart the mac to make the changes take effect.