How to Disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) on Your Mac

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Posted April 22, 2017 at 4:16pm by iClarified

These are instructions on how to disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) on your Mac.

System Integrity Protection was introduced with OS X El Capitan and prevents potentially malicious software from modifying protected files and folders on your Mac. It also restricts the root user account and limits the actions that the root user can perform on protected parts of the Mac operating system.

SIP prevents you from modifying the following folders:
● /System
● /usr
● /bin
● /sbin
● Apps that are pre-installed with OS X

You can still modify:
● /Applications
● /Library
● /usr/local

To regain access to the blocked folders, you can disable System Integrity Protection. You should only do this if you are an advanced user and really know what you are doing.

Here's how...

Step One
Reboot your Mac into Recovery Mode by holding down the Command+R keys as the computer starts up. You can release them once you see an Apple logo.

Step Two
Select Terminal from the Utilities menu.

Step Three
Enter csrutil disable into the Terminal window and hit the Return key to disable SIP.

Step Four
Choose Restart from the Apple menu at the top left corner to reboot into macOS.

You can repeat these instructions and use the csrutil enable command in Terminal to re-enable System Integrity Protection.

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D4xM4Nx - April 23, 2017 at 5:24am

Yep, well known procedure to have full control on all the system. Kinda like elevated privileges ala jailbreak.

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morecrap - April 23, 2017 at 3:36am

I disabled mine in Sierra itself. Annoying for any power user really.

Cool Cmsc - April 22, 2017 at 7:21pm

You could explain the purpose... Those that don't know how to do this may not know it's benefits (give a list of programmes that have increased utility). Also, you could add what effect it may have on some apps if re-enabled.

morecrap - April 23, 2017 at 3:42am

If you don't know what it is, it is unlikely that you will ever need this disabled. It may be required by people who are using brew for example.

Gsmlnc - April 22, 2017 at 4:46pm

This method does not work with Sierra if you don't boot from the sierra installer disk (DVD or USB Disk made with DiskMaker X for exemple)