I’ve started a Safari App Extension project, following Apple’s documentation.
I’ve got my (empty) app, and my very minimal extension. I’ve archived the app, signing it with my Developer ID. When I copied the archived app to a friend’s Mac, ran it, and launched Safari, the app extension showed up in the Extensions pane of Safari’s preferences (with the parent app’s icon), and when enabled, worked fine.
However, when I run the app on my Mac (where I developed it), and launch Safari, the app extension does not show up in Safari’s Extensions preference pane unless I check “Allow Unsigned Exceptions” in Safari’s develop menu, as described in this answer — and when it does, it has a generic app icon, rather the parent app’s icon.
Although I hope to eventually make the app and the app extension available to other people, I’m mainly making it for myself. As such, I’d like to be able to use it without having to check “Allow Unsigned Exceptions” every time I start Safari.
How can I make the app extension show up in Safari’s Extensions preference pane on the computer I develop the extension on?
I found a debug version of my app and app extension in my user Library folder:
~/Library/Developer/XCode/DerivedData/{APP_NAME_FOLLOWED_BY_LONG_STRING}/Build/Products/Debug
After deleting the contents of this folder, restarting Safari, and allowing unsigned extensions again, my app extension no longer appeared with the generic icon in Safari’s Extensions preferences.
(I’m a real Xcode newbie, so I’ve no idea if deleting debug builds is a thing that I can/should do via Xcode instead.)
I then archived my app again and ran it, then restarted Safari. Now my app extension shows up in Safari’s Extensions preferences, with its proper icon and everything, and stays enabled between restarts.