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Apple UUID Finder
Apple executables and their universally unique value
INTRO
While studying macOS’s TCC mechanism, particularly how com.apple.macl works, I encountered the challenge of identifying apps by their UUIDs due to Apple’s system’s lack of direct methods. To address this, I developed a tool called UUIDFinder, which simplifies locating executables by UUID and creates a database that stores file paths and corresponding UUIDs.
By the end of this article, you will learn how to identify all executables on your macOS, find their UUIDs, and create such a UUID database.
All tools used here are available to download from the Snake&Apple repository.
UUIDs in macOS Executables
UUIDs (Universally Unique Identifiers) are unique 128-bit values embedded within each macOS executable file. They provide a unique ID for each app. I described the place of UUID in the binary file and its structure here:
They are often used in debugging and version management to identify binaries and associated metadata precisely.
However, using these UUIDs to locate executables is not straightforward due to the limited built-in macOS functionality for handling UUID-based searches.
Extracting Executable UUID
If we only care about ARM64 binaries, we may use CrimsonUroboros:
If we want the UUID of every architecture in fat binary dwarfdump is better:
So, we know how to find the UUID of executables.
