TinkerTool System 10

Known Issues

There are currently no known issues for this product.

Release Notes

The initial release of the program does not show internet links for macOS 27 in Quick Help: If you click the question mark icon in the TinkerTool System 10.0 toolbar to open the Quick Help page for a specific feature, you will find only links to macOS 26 in the section Internet Information from Apple instead of current macOS 27 links.

Workaround: This is the intended and normal behavior for the first release. Because this version launches alongside macOS 27 Golden Gate and Apple does not grant early access to official documentation, up-to-date links were unavailable during the development phase of TinkerTool System 10. The help pages will include these in a future free update.

Updated for version 10.0 - 2026-09-14

Checking the availability of definition updates for Apple’s antivirus software can be unreliable in some operating system versions: As of summer 2026, the feature on the pane “Maintenance > Antivirus” to check Apple’s servers for the latest virus definitions for their XProtect anti-malware program may not always work as advertised by Apple. Instead of retrieving version number and release date, macOS won’t receive a valid response in such cases.

Workaround: This is a known issue with specific versions of macOS. TinkerTool System can correctly detect this situation and will indicate whether a failure in the operating system prevents retrieving the requested information. There is no other workaround. It is currently unknown when or if Apple will fix this.

Updated for version 9.93 - 2026-09-02

Liquid Glass can cause errors in toolbars: The Liquid Glass effects introduced with macOS 26 Tahoe may sometimes cause optical and usability issues in the toolbars of applications, including TinkerTool System. Separate buttons may unexpectedly float together, and glass buttons may be put onto elements which have no button functionality, like titles or labels. This can especially happen when changing appearance settings of the user interface, e.g. switching from dark to light appearance mode. The liquid effects are enforced by the operating system against the express instructions of the applications.

Workaround: This is a known technical defect of macOS 26 Tahoe and macOS 27 Golden Gate. We have informed Apple about this issue, but it is currently unknown when and if Apple will fix it. As a workaround, you should quit applications each time before switching appearance settings, then restart them.

Updated for version 10.0 - 2026-09-14

Apple’s approval feature for integrating security components is very immature: With macOS 13 Ventura, Apple introduced a new procedure that requires administrators to use System Settings to control whether to allow an application to install login items on the system or to let a program launch a privilege separation utility at the same time when the main application starts. These functions are immature and are affected by numerous technical defects. This can have influence on TinkerTool System 10, since for security reasons, it always uses the most modern form of privilege separation that a macOS version dictates. Among other things, there are the following issues:

(A) Network administrators cannot grant the necessary permission at the start of the program, but only via System Settings: When starting TinkerTool System 10 for the first time, macOS shows a notification that allows administrators to permit TinkerTool System 10 to run a privilege separation utility. This must be confirmed with an administrator’s password. However, password entry only works for locally set-up administrator accounts, not for network administrator accounts.

Workaround: We have notified Apple of this bug and hope it will be fixed in future versions of macOS. As a workaround, grant permission via System Settings > General > Login Items & Extensions > Background App Activity and not via the notification.

(B) If you store multiple copies of TinkerTool System on your computer in an unusual way, macOS service management may be overwhelmed: Current versions of macOS are not designed to handle situations where multiple copies of TinkerTool System can be found on your computer. (Copies in Time Machine backups do not count.)

Workaround: Only store one copy of TinkerTool System on your computer.

(C) Already acknowledged App Background Activities can temporarily disappear or become inoperative: Even if you have successfully registered App Background Activity for TinkerTool System and enabled it with the switch in System Settings, the respective entry in System Settings may suddenly disappear, so that the application starts the assistant for integration of the security component again when you launch it. In individual cases, System Settings may even show contradictory data.

Workaround: This is a newly emerged defect of macOS 27 Golden Gate. Usually, restarting the Mac is sufficient to resolve the problem in this case.

Updated for version 10.0 - 2026-09-14

The privacy feature of macOS that grants TinkerTool System access to the full disk may fail if you have multiple copies of TinkerTool System on your computer: As noted in the chapter Basic Operations: Privacy Policy Settings of your Mac, you have to approve that TinkerTool System has permission for Full Disk Access before you can use all features of the application. When you store multiple copies of TinkerTool System on your Mac however, this approval may fail unexpectedly. TinkerTool System may indicate that it does not have the necessary approval although it was given previously.

Workaround: This is a known design flaw of the Privacy feature of macOS. The protection feature can be confused when working with multiple copies of the same application. Use the following steps to ensure that macOS grants permission to the intended copy of the software:

  1. Identify all copies of TinkerTool System on your computer, e.g. by using Spotlight.
  2. Delete all superfluous copies, keeping the correct one.
  3. In System Settings, go to Privacy & Security > Full Disk Access, authorize as administrator, and remove the entry for TinkerTool System if available.
  4. Re-add the entry for TinkerTool System.

Note that you can always keep backup copies of TinkerTool System on your Time Machine disks. This may not work when using third-party backup applications, however.

Updated for version 8.5 - 2023-04-18

The size values for APFS snapshots on inactive operating system volumes can be wrong: Current versions of macOS are unable to determine the private size of APFS snapshots correctly if the snapshots belong to a volume of another macOS installation on your computer. In this case, you may receive a private size of zero and a tide mark at the 4.61 exabyte position.

Workaround: There is no known workaround. Apple’s Disk Utility is also affected by this issue.

Updated for version 7.86 - 2022-03-17

If you specify a time interval while querying the system log, specific versions of macOS may return incorrect data in case the time interval is a few seconds around the startup time: If you use the feature Info > Logs to get an excerpt from the system log and you specify a time interval targeting the first boot phase exactly, macOS will often return an incomplete or empty log as result.

Workaround: This is a defect in current versions of macOS. It is currently unknown when and if Apple will fix this issue. As a workaround, you can try to shift the time interval by a small amount, e.g. by 10 seconds after the startup time. In most cases, macOS will then provide the correct excerpt from the logs.

Updated for version 7.87 - 2022-05-09