Photos Library (Photos) is a macOS privacy permission. Photos permission gives an app access to your entire Apple Photos library, including all photos and videos, their metadata (location, date, people identified by face recognition), albums, and any edits. This can include extremely personal content spanning years of your life. Common apps that request this permission include Adobe Lightroom, Google Photos, Pixelmator Pro, Instagram, WhatsApp. Risk level: caution. To check which apps have this permission, open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, and select Photos. CoreLock identifies all apps with Photos library access and flags those that could be syncing your images to external cloud services. It monitors for new apps gaining access to your photo library and helps you understand which apps have full vs. limited access.
Photos permission gives an app access to your entire Apple Photos library, including all photos and videos, their metadata (location, date, people identified by face recognition), albums, and any edits. This can include extremely personal content spanning years of your life.
Click the Apple menu and select System Settings.
Click Privacy & Security in the sidebar.
Click Photos. You'll see which apps can access your Photos library.
Some apps offer "Limited Access" where you select specific photos rather than granting access to your entire library. Use this option when available.
Go to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Photos.
Disable the toggle to revoke full access. If the app supports it, you may see an option to switch to limited access instead.
If the app already synced photos to its cloud service, revoking local access won't delete those copies. Check the app's cloud storage and delete synced content if desired.
CoreLock identifies all apps with Photos library access and flags those that could be syncing your images to external cloud services. It monitors for new apps gaining access to your photo library and helps you understand which apps have full vs. limited access.
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Full access lets the app see every photo and video in your library. Limited access lets you hand-pick specific photos the app can see — the rest remain private. Always choose limited access when the option is available.
Yes. Unless you've stripped location data from your photos, apps with Photos access can read the GPS coordinates embedded in each image's EXIF metadata. This reveals where every photo was taken — potentially exposing your home address, workplace, and travel history.
No. Revoking access only stops future reads from your Photos library. If the app already uploaded copies to its cloud service (like Google Photos or Adobe Creative Cloud), those copies remain. You need to delete them within that service separately.
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