Today, I’ll help you understand how to navigate the rather convoluted process of signing and notarizing both an app and its installer. I would like to share my experiences in developing and distributing macOS apps outside of the Mac App Store and show you how you can do it too. You probably downloaded Xcode from Apple’s developer portal (because downloading it from the App Store usually doesn’t work). Yes, I know about the Apple Developer Enterprise Program, but it only “allows large organizations to develop and deploy proprietary, internal-use apps to their employees.” How many of you have obtained tools like Skype, Zoom, Atom, or Sourcetree? These are all “third-party” apps not distributed through the Mac App Store. You can’t download an iOS app outside of the App Store.
Many of you have downloaded and installed macOS software directly from websites, i.e., not from the Mac App Store. Since the advent of OS X Mojave and especially Catalina and the requirement for app notarization, some of us old-time macOS developers are concerned that Apple will pull the plug on the apps that we distribute ourselves.
