Monolingual Files

A patch release. 2.0 could not remove anything — that is fixed here, first below. The rest of this note describes 2.0, the first release since 1.8.2, which requires macOS 27 on an Apple silicon Mac.

Fixed in 2.0.1

• Monolingual can remove files again. 2.0 asked macOS for something it does not allow, so the privileged helper that does the removing was never installed. macOS 27 refuses to register an unsandboxed launch daemon from a sandboxed app, and Monolingual was on both sides of that rule at once: the app had been sandboxed since 2015, and the helper has to run unconfined because it deletes files anywhere on disk. The app is no longer sandboxed.
• Preferences start over. They lived in the sandbox container, which an unsandboxed app cannot read, so the folders to thin fall back to /Applications and /Library. If you had added a folder of your own, add it again under Preferences.
• Thinning an unusually large universal binary could crash Monolingual. The architecture offsets of a fat file are now added in 64 bits, and a file whose slices would not fit a 32-bit header is refused instead of trapping.
• The app inside the disk image had no notarization ticket stapled to it — only the zip did — so Gatekeeper had to ask Apple about the app before it would run, which fails on a Mac that is offline or behind a restrictive network. The app is now stapled before the disk image is built.

The app

• Rewritten in Swift 6 with a SwiftUI interface.
• A removal now reports what it is doing in a sheet — the file it is working on and the space freed so far — and can be cancelled.
• Monolingual notifies you when a removal has finished, with the space it saved.
• The English language files can no longer be selected: removing them breaks a macOS installation beyond repair, so the entry stays disabled.

The privileged helper

• Installed with Service Management instead of the deprecated SMJobBless. Approve it once in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions.
• The app and the helper now use the Swift XPC API, and the helper checks that the process talking to it is the Monolingual app.
• Symbolic links are no longer followed when removing language files or thinning architectures.

Localization

• Added Turkish.
• All 16 translations are complete. They now live in a String Catalog, so no string can go stale.

Fixed

• A blocklist download that failed could leave Monolingual without a blocklist, which made the next removal crash.

Also

• Updates are signed with Sparkle 2 and EdDSA, and the app is notarized.
• A new app icon.