Weird file and folder on my Mac -- does anyone else have these?

[Inspector C]

Happy owner of a new 15" M2 MBA. It came with Ventura. I did not use the Migration Assistant and did not restore from Time Machine or any backup drive. In other words, the Mac was pristine.

Right out of the box, I noticed an odd file in User/Library/Application Scripts. It's titled

group.is.workflow.my [Apologies! I originally mistyped this name.]​

What threw me is that it has a prohibited symbol for its icon 🚫 (in white against a gray background). (It's like the icon that showed up for 32-bit apps on my older Mac, when I installed Monterey.)

I checked Get Info, but there was nothing indicating the file came from Apple.

Right below it was a folder titled

group.is.workflow.shortcuts​

Both are zero bytes in size.

Being concerned, I contacted Apple Support, but they could not tell me what they are, if they are part of Ventura, or even whether they should be there!

Being a bit wary, I did an Erase All Content and Settings and installed Sonoma -- and discovered they were there again!

Would you all do me a favor and check your Macs and see whether you have such a file and folder?

I'd like to get confirmation that they are normal parts of the OS and not something improper.

If they are supposed to be there, maybe someone knows why the latest OSs would be installing a prohibited file!

Thanks for your help.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I have no such file. The system files are sealed so you don't have to worry about them. Have you installed any third party apps?

System Extension Updated. You must approv… - Apple Community

discussions.apple.com

 

[Bigwaff]

Right out of the box, I noticed an odd file in User/Library/Application Scripts. It's titled

group.is.worklflow.my

Did you spell this wrong? “work-l-flow”? If so, spelled correctly, it is part of the Shortcuts app.

 

[sunnyjohn2]

Just checked and I, too have that folder in Application Scripts, exactly the same with the no entry symbol in white on grey. I've a 21.5 1998 iMac running Sonoma right up-to-date. Like you, I've no idea what it is and since it does not seem to be affecting the operation of the system and is barred to me anyway, I would do what I do and forget it!

 

[chown33]

If they are supposed to be there, maybe someone knows why the latest OSs would be installing a prohibited file!

I can't provide any info on whether the folder(s) should be present, but I'm pretty sure I can explain the "prohibited" symbol on a folder.

First, the symbol only means "this account can't access this item". There are any number of folders in macOS that have restricted access. This one just happens to be under ~/Library instead of under a system-managed directory. (EDIT: I may have misidentified the symbol that appears; see later posts.)

You should be able to Get Info on the "prohibited" folders and look at the access under the permissions sub-pane.


In the case of a folder, "can't access" means "can't read", which means you can't look into the folder and see it's contents. One consequence of this is that the Finder can't show you what's in the folder.

You can make your own "read-prohibited" folder on your Desktop using Terminal. Type or paste these into a Terminal window, and watch what happens on your Desktop:

mkdir ~/Desktop/StopMe
chmod 000 ~/Desktop/StopMe

At this point you should have a folder named "StopMe" on your desktop, and it should indicate "no access".


Coming back to the actual folders in question, you should be able to list the permissions of the items in ~/Library with this command:

ls -lde ~/Library/"Application Scripts"/group*work*

The '-l' option means "long info". The 'd' option means "don't list directory contents". The 'e' means "list Access Control Lists", which are an additional means for access control.

The wildcard *'s should match anything in those positions of the name. I used wildcards because Bigwaff raised a question of name accuracy.

Please copy and paste the output here. If there's any error message, please paste the entire message.

 

[Grumpus]

The prohibited sign for the app is there because the app (folder) is empty. Both empty folders exist on my 2019 MBA running Monterey, and have full read/write/search permissions for my userid and no acls or extended attributes. I don't know why they exist, but I wouldn't worry about them.

 

[chown33]

The prohibited sign for the app is there because the app (folder) is empty. Both empty folders exist on my 2019 MBA running Monterey, and have full read/write/search permissions for my userid and no acls or extended attributes. I don't know why they exist, but I wouldn't worry about them.

If the empty folders have the ".app" suffix, then that would be an even better reason to show the "prohibited" symbol.

Expanding on my example above:

mkdir ~/Desktop/Empty.app

The result should be an app icon on the Desktop with a "prohibited" symbol, signaling that the anticipated app contains insufficient resources to be run.

A right-click and "Show Package Contents" will confirm it's empty.

 

[bogdanw]

The Shortcuts app creates:
group.is.workflow.shortcuts
com.apple.shortcuts
com.apple.shortcuts.ThumbnailExtension
com.apple.shortcuts.QuickLookExtension
in ~/Library/Application Scripts/

 

[Inspector C]

Appreciate the replies. Yes, I mistyped the prohibited file's name. No, nothing extra was installed. The Mac is fresh out of the box.

I'm surprised that at least one of you doesn't even have the file and folder on their Macs! That's especially the case if running Monterey, Ventura, or Sonoma as it seems they are part and parcel of the OS.

I checked my 2019 MBA with Monterey and found the same file and folder. I deleted them and suffered no consequences.

I won't try creating a "prohibited" file -- beyond my pay grade!

I checked Get Info and do have Read & Write access to both the file and folder. So the file isn't Read Only. I did a Show Package Contents on group.is.workflow.my and it shows that the file is, indeed, empty. The folder has nothing in it, either.

Given that the file and folder appear to be part of the Shortcuts app (I've read elsewhere, too, that "workflow" is the designation used by that), I should be able to create a couple of Shortcuts and see the sizes increase, right? Would something then show up under Package Contents?

One other piece of evidence that these are part of the Mac OS: They have the exact same creation and modification dates as when the Sonoma system was installed -- and those dates match many other OS system folders in the Application Scripts folder -- e.g., group.com.apple.weather and group.com.apple.tips. Plus, a document, group.com.apple.iBooks was created just 1 minute later.

Intriguingly, I just scrolled through the documents in the System Library folder -- none have a prohibited icon!

It seems as if only this file has it. The question is, why?

Would appreciate it if more people would check their Macs and add confirmation that this is a standard OS file. The more the merrier, as they say.

______________________________

It's still weird, though, that Apple Support had no idea of what they are -- you'd think that they would provide support specialists, including the higher-level tech folks, with a searchable database of the files and folders that the OS installs. That way, they could have simply confirmed for me or any other caller, "Yes, that's part of Sonoma" (or Ventura, Monterey, or whatever other OS they belong to). They could also have added, "That's part of the Shortcuts app, formerly known as Automator" (or Apple Script or whatever its precursor was).

 

[Macschrauber]

at least youre not alone:

🔎 "group.is.workflow.my" - Google Search

www.google.com

 

[Janichsan]

Yes, I have these files. As mentioned, they belong to the ShortCuts app. They don't have the "prohibited" symbol for me, though.

 

[Inspector C]

at least youre not alone:

🔎 "group.is.workflow.my" - Google Search

www.google.com

Yeah, but if you read those threads, the few posters have no idea what it is, mention Shortcuts, or assert categorically that it's a virus! (Just read the first one on that!) (The last link is about an iPhone and irrelevant.)

So, would still like to hear from others confirming that the file and folder are, indeed, on their Macs!

 

[bogdanw]

Video proof that Shortcuts creates group.is.workflow.shortcuts, group.is.workflow.my, com.apple.shortcuts

Recorded from a Sonoma virtual machine where I used AppCleaner https://freemacsoft.net/appcleaner/ to delete files/folders generated by Shortcuts and deleted all the folders in ~/Library/Application Scripts/ to make it easier to see how the new folders are created.

 

[Inspector C]

Superb!

I'm grateful for the responses and the information. With luck, others who encounter the same file and folder and wonder what they are will, in searching the net, come across this thread and be reassured that nothing's amiss.

Maybe Apple will up its support game, too! It needs to clue in its front line phone support people and chat agents, but also the first level of tech support. No one there knew what the file or folder was and no one at those levels could confirm that it was a legitimate Mac OS file.

They could also identify these in the Get Info box with a "installed by Apple" or "part of Mac OS" designation