How to fix 'This application can't be opened' error on Mac

I had this issue a lot when downloading Mac games from Itch. I have no idea why it happens but this solution fixed the issue all of the time.
Hope you find this useful :)
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#macos #files #itch #game

[@TheKhadleferone]

THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH.... TRIED EVERYTHING FROM OTHER TUTORIALS, BUT YOUR TUTORIAL RESOLVED MY PROBLEM!!! YOU ARE AWESOME!!! THANK YOU!!!

[@richardbray]

Glad I could help out!

[@bigmangaming919]

SIDE NOTE: sometimes, if you do this, it will crash and the game won't start. for some games, you have to look further in the package contents and find more MacOS folders with more executables, and use this command on those ones as well. otherwise, works pretty good

[@DuThinh_Truong]

Is there anyway to fix if the game crashed and won't start?

[@morganjonkers6946]

@@DuThinh_Truong did you find out?

[@wdrutherfordium4886]

I like your profile it’s the same as pretty much all my wallpapers :)

[@someone-uz1ob]

thx bro im tryna play a game and it just crashes

[@thechxf]

I need help because when trying to set up the commands in the terminal it keeps saying not a directory despite me writing the exact names of the game files that i downloaded in order

[@ziahduel1286]

Took me a minute to figure out, but worked instantly for all the games I tried 👍

[@christianmonari6674]

Hi So I managed to make the file an executable, however now I cannot open it even-though I changed it in my privacy settings. The white button under the app shows that I have opened it, however nothing pops up on my screen.

[@ritzwashere]

Big note: you can also drag the file from the MacOS folder into terminal after you added chmod +x

[@samj9963]

DUDE THANK YOU - I WAS GONNA GIVE UP UNTIL I SAW THIS COMMENT

[@rhythmegg]

@@samj9963 i think you could also right-click file, hold "option", and copy as pathname.

[@Karthikpala17]

thanks dude

[@discorobots198]

Thank you, this was very helpful! Also, I was having trouble at first, but I found a good solution: For some reason, typing in the file and its location was not working for me. Maybe I was typing something wrong, but I tried many times and it still didn't work. Then I tried just typing "chmod +x " and dragging the file into the terminal, which worked!

[@ventea9858]

Wait which file did you drag in? I’m trying to play escaped chasm and nothing has been working so far, did you drag in the actual game file or the file in Contents>MacOS> (then insert the file in there)

[@ventea9858]

Oh my god I’m dumb Tysm for commenting this! I can now play the game I’ve wanted to for 2 years! 🎉 Edit: Nvm victory dance is over it’s not working 😢

[@firstnamelastname1971]

thank you

[@Hellspwn6]

Your comment was sooooo helpful dude! Thank you.

[@anthonylisa1]

Awesome thanks

[@mennahashem4248]

It is still not working with me, when I typed cd, there was no options there so I dragged and dropped the path inside the terminal.

[@eniotna1053]

cela fonctionne t'il pour x-force 19 key gen ? pour mac monterey ?

[@maxwasthere]

Thank you! Just what I was looking for! :)

[@ronaisen1108]

Thanks! , it was really helpful and solved my problem!

[@fryme_ifyoudare]

Thank you for your simple and easy-to-follow video

[@alessandracastano9080]

This is super helpful with all games except for one. After using chmod +x I get this message if i try to open the map: You can’t open the application “XYZ” because it may be damaged or incomplete. Do you know of a way to fix it? :)

[@richardbray]

Unfortunately I don't think there's a way to fix it if it's damaged. You might have to dowbload and try again

[@teldinn]

Fixed the problem for me! Thanks!!

[@hugginbee8566]

Thanks for this video! You've saved my day. A lot of games have this type of error and I'm not good with computers, thanks again!

[@Changecogs2821]

Can anyone help me with this problem? I have a application called stickmans(Mac) and it won’t open so I typed it in the same way he did and made sure to replace the ()’s with ‘ but after I type it in it says “no such file or directory” and idk if I’m doing anything wrong

[@RainSally1403]

Work wonders, thank you so much!

[@heycider6715]

Thank you so much!!! It Fixed the problem for me!

[@nomanshaikh664]

i get an error chmod+x not found what to do in that case???and also a error by dragging the file into terminal that no such file or directory....pls help?

[@richardbray]

Are you using the default mac terminal?

[@joewhitfield6316]

Works like a charm. Thanks!

[@roffencs]

Okay, so in order to this, I have to copy the certain app from applications folder to desktop or downloads or somewhere where terminal can list from?

[@richardbray]

Err, it can stay where it is as long as you can find it in the terminal. Desktop is an easy place to locate with the terminal that's why I used it in the example. But if you know how to change directories and stuff it can be anywhere.

[@shainazhaniff]

hello when i tried to look for moths blood but it just had the game`s name in the macos folder will it still work if i use that?

[@richardbray]

I'm not sure. Did it work for you?

[@lisandroguevara1756]

Absolutely Perfect, You saved my day!

[@richardbray]

Glad I could help!

[@m8tcha]

Keeps saying "event not found" :( the game and etc included spaces so idk what I did, I used the regular mac terminal

[@scoretosettle6568]

Ok so every time I open up iTerm 2, it doesn't look like yours. When I type the letters "cd" it doesn't open up a commands list. Am I doing something wrong? Is there another thing I have to do before that? Thanks a lot!

[@richardbray]

I'm not sure. Maybe your terminal isn't configured to accept unix based commands

[@Hellspwn6]

ever find a solution?

[@aestec_ale]

Works with every internet installer that I've tried so far thanks!

[@gabrielmaneiro]

Man, i don't know if i'm typing the command wrong, but everytime it says ta couldn't find the location or that there's no such file as Amplitube 5 (My app is in the application folder) What should i do? What command to use specifically? Help me out please!!! I appreciate!!

[@richardbray]

If you type ls, or ls -la is should show you a list of available files. Maybe it's a hidden one 🤷

[@WilliDLax]

Were you able to solve this?

[@hellasecrets264]

@@WilliDLax no. plz help

[@nazelanurhidayat5221]

ive spend 2 hours in this terminal, still didnt work. it says -bash and before this i was installing deamontools. i dont get it

[@Trshslsa]

I think mine already has the executable. When I run in in terminal, I see a bad CPU type error.. Any work arounds? I thought about Xcode but it didnt work because im on high sierra. Thanks

[@richardbray]

Sorry I'm not sure how to help :(

[@nerdyplayz6999]

this is very useful thx for the vid :D keep finding more natural accours and making vids about them thanks for the help :D

[@JaJor90]

Thanx mate. Worked for me! :)

[@Datovidark]

Thank you very much, I was stressed not being able to open a game that I bought, but thanks to you I was able to play❤

[@felipeandresperaltalopez1523]

Thank you so much! I was almost sure this wasn't gonna work but IT DID!!! Thanks!!!

[@richardbray]

Nice, glad you found it helpful 👏

[@Eijmaer]

thank you so much for this! It really helped me!

[@LmM-dq4ft]

Im trying to write the command in but have no clue what to type can you write the command to get to the desktop?

[@richardbray]

If you're on a Mac the terminal should default to your user. Pressing ls should give you a list of directories and one of them should be the Desktop. To get into it you should just need to type cd Desktop

[@juliansposato2825]

But it did at least get some working just wondering if you know how to solve the other problem

[@olayinkaolatunde3028]

I'm on MacOS Monterey and mine shows that the file is executable already. What do I do to fix this please so I can be able to launch the file? Thanks

[@richardbray]

Sorry I'm not sure. Maybe it's still a permissions issue 🤷

[@fayazpasha350]

Superb clear explanation

[@sand0407]

what would I do without you, It took me a few attempts but I finally got it and im forever grateful.

[@richardbray]

Ha, glad this video was able to help you out.

[@artegames2921]

when i go into the MacOS folder in the contents, instead of having one thing in the folder, there are a bunch of files that end with .dylib, with one outlier that just says, "Mac". what do i do?

[@richardbray]

That's odd. How did you install the application? Or maybe you have some extra unnecessary files

[@artegames2921]

@@richardbray ok turns out that the game doesnt run on mac silicon soo its whatever

[@Roxra65]

my game has dashes (-) do i leave them in and use the quotation marks or delete them?

[@richardbray]

Yep, leave them on and use quotation marks. Let me know if that works

[@jasperjones3576]

This was exactly what I needed, thank you!

[@justeludo4496]

yo ty so much

[@sygmaone]

Hey, I am trying to the same with a cracker app for AutoCAD on Monterrey 12.2.1 and it turns the file to an executable but I still get the same error when trying to launch the app :(

[@macvila]

Did you find a solution yet? I'm stuck with the same problem...can´t run the xf-adsk2020 app!

[@samadmks]

Nee too

[@9039josh]

@@samadmks any solution yet?

[@disonvorenandri]

yap mee too

[@sygmaone]

Yes I solved it with homebrew in the end.

[@hannahbray9685]

So glad I found this video!

[@prettyprincess7645]

THANK YOU BRO YOU ARE THE BEST I SWEAR 💗

[@mysmart_yg]

Hey just wondering youre terminal is very fancy is it a homebrew package or something? please tell me??

[@richardbray]

I think I was using iTerm2 in that video but I use Warp now :)

[@mysmart_yg]

@@richardbray good to know

[@cinematicamusic2578]

It worked perfectly!, thank you!

[@iceyore]

i come back to this every time this problem occurs thanks

[@richardbray]

Thank, that's means a lot.

[@cosasdelau2579]

thank you Richard! nice solution...

[@brianc3536]

Great video! I was able to turn my file into an executable, but now I still can't open the game; any advice on how to fix that?

[@noblesage58]

I've uninstalled and reinstalled the game a few times and each time I finish it says "You can’t open the application “Game” because it may be damaged or incomplete." But I know I downloaded everything correctly and the game worked before. Any suggestions would be helpful

[@richardbray]

Hmmm, maybe you can try downloading it again?

[@troyc6193]

Holy shit THANK you. This saved me. I couldn't find any other answers online.

[@roganlowerson6221]

it keeps saying no such file or directory

[@AndriyHavryliv]

Thank you! It worked perfectly! 😊

[@bigsad1601]

do you know what could be wrong if it says "permission denied after after pressing enter?

[@richardbray]

Maybe you don't have permissions to that file, you can change that with chmod

[@Xaeque]

Thank you, this fixed my issue! My .app file was set to executable but the actual MacOS file was read only.

[@jackfeger7634]

i'm getting a command not found error how might i fix that?

[@richardbray]

Which command isn't found?

[@supafart]

It says No such file or directory

[@jkt5132]

I'm new to terminal can someone please help, when I type cd Desktop nothing appears as well as I don't have any little arrows or underlining

[@richardbray]

Sorry cd is a linux/mac thing. If you're on a windows you'll need to use WSL

[@HÀMÁĐ467-k1y]

​@@richardbray for application i can use ASL?

[@NotAPolarBearXD]

ok but the "mothsblood" file is only for this game, how do you do it for other games/applications?

[@richardbray]

Other games or applications should have a different name. The process should be the same but the names should be different.

[@rojanshrestha1424]

i downloaded After Effects v24.1 from file cr but i am not able to install it. Could you please make a video on that?

[@richardbray]

Hmm, usually Adobe make these things easy to install. What error do you have?

[@rojanshrestha1424]

@@richardbray I figured it out , its running well. Thanks for the video that was really helpful.

[@kliferbraum]

Thanks for the help, but do you know any kind of solution to solve this definitely ? because almost every app and file i try to open this error are showed! I hope anyone has some kind of command to solve this error, I can`t open almost everything on my mac! Doing this terminal command everytime for every file is very frustrating

[@richardbray]

Not sure. Where are you downloading your apps from?

[@morsenzl]

Can u make a video on how to get that HUD thingy

[@richardbray]

I'm not sure what you mean by HUD thingy. If you're referring to the terminal/command prompt, I talk about it a tiny bit on this video kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3i1YXloaJqUg9k

[@shufflinpro]

Richard you are a genius!

[@dhru7en]

For me there is nothing inside the MacOS folder of the app.

[@molinnn]

when i do this it tells me the file is damaged and to move it to Bin

[@richardbray]

Hmmm that can't be right. It should say the file is damaged BEFORE you do this. Maybe something's gone wrong somewhere. .

[@kentaryuu]

ive followed all the steps but when i go to open it it says "Problem Report for nwjs" and it says nwjs quuit unexpectedly, (nwjs is the executable), When i look at the executable it shows up but its just not openeing, can anyone help?

[@richardbray]

Hmm, maybe check permissions. Or try downloading it again

[@ethanoldabest3829]

tysm, I had downloaded a game from itch also and it wouldn't open but after watching this guide, it worked!

[@thedevo01]

SUPERB! Thank you!

[@legospongebob641]

THANK YOU SO MUCH, THIS HELPED ME SO MUCH, YOU ARE TRUELY AMAZING

[@holts4christ]

You can get this "cannot" dialog for reasons other than permissions not be correct on the application launcher executable.

[@reasonableraisin3366]

How did you get iTerm2 to like tell you what to type I'm pretty sure it's not working because I'm typing something wrong but I don't know what and iTerm2 doesn't do that for me

[@richardbray]

I'm using a shell in iterm2 called zsh and I have a zsh autocomplete plugin. If this interests you I'm happy to create a video about it.

[@reasonableraisin3366]

@@richardbray Thanks I'll try it out

[@ortuluna]

That is a insane issue, thanks mate!

[@user-gt3dr5om4d]

man i love u

[@rohitpatil8452]

I am getting this error for all the application except finder one....not able to open even terminal, How will this be resolved? Any idea?!!

[@richardbray]

Wow that sounds insane!! I honestly think you might have to boot to safe mode and reset your OS or something 🤷

[@rohitpatil8452]

@@richardbray yes it is wired! well i tried with safe mode but not work.... As it's my corporate system will need their permission before resetting it.

[@lesbianmirandareid]

ive done this and its worked, however when I click the game, it opens but nothing actually comes up, do you know how to fix this? thank you for this tutorial though, it was very helpful!

[@richardbray]

Can you try downloading the game again? Maybe it is corrupted 🤷‍♀️

[@precursorcodes2957]

This Genius.... I've been trying to play a game for years with this error, and I CAN FINALLY PLAY IT!!!!!!!!!! subbed just for that

[@richardbray]

That's very kind of you to say. I'm glad I could help out and thanks for the sub 👍

[@bncprado]

thank you man...saved my day

[@Asiann3rd]

I tried this but sadly it didn't work. I think its because i tried this on desktop but im glad you where able to help others! i was still hoping this would work bc ive watched 20 videos of how to fix this and i even restarted my mac =(.

[@arimoney2571]

Dude I have a MacBook Air and I’m trynna figure this shit out, were you able to find a way bc I’m still having issues:(((

[@Asiann3rd]

@@arimoney2571 yes kinda idk what app or what thing u tried for but u basically just re download the file ( I might try to explain a bit more in detail later but I hope this helps )

[@arimoney2571]

@@Asiann3rd I just watched his video and honestly idk wtf that code shit was so wym I have to go back on the website and delete the game and redownload it there?

[@Asiann3rd]

@@arimoney2571 u basically delete and then download again

[@arn_ice]

My terminal for some reason displayed things a bit differently. BUT this worked (although I still had to argue with MacOs to launch a game, I do sorta appreciate that security thing, the message was "not sure if this is malicious" but I personally knew it couldn't be so hey). These vids and also that tip here in the comment section of just drag and drop (Mac has usually been cool with that stuff) was very nice and smooth going.

[@niftybaker5967]

Is exec. for me now, but still won't run no matter what

[@richardbray]

Ah man I'm sorry to hear that. Is it a game you're having issues with or something else?

[@carlosthedeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

thank you so much it worked for me

[@richardbray]

Glad it helped

[@journeyweeks]

Everything in the terminal seems to have worked, except when I go to open my application I get a new error message saying "You can't open the application "name" because Microsoft Windows applications are not supported on macOS" any explanation for this?

[@richardbray]

Ha, it looks like the error explains it quite well. Have you downloaded a windows version of the application?

[@journeyweeks]

@@richardbray I downloaded the universal Mac version.

[@jonasbyamungu8905]

Hey Richard I tried your steps but it didn’t works. it says " not a directory" I need your help

[@richardbray]

Sorry to hear that. You can drag the relevant file into the terminal which should give you the right path if that helps

[@Changecogs2821]

@@richardbraythank you bro

[@tvjojo]

this was a Godsend thank you 🙏

[@ochremoore6192]

OMG TSM!! this was a perfect!

[@miki001]

Hello i have this problem with Adobe Illustrator but don't have moths blood file

[@richardbray]

Moths blood is an example. I think there should be a file with a different name for illustrator

[@DevinArne]

🙏Thanks for this video! This really helped with a Max/Msp Standalone that I created and will now be able to share!

[@juliansposato2825]

Nwjs quit unexpectedly is what I get for alot of them after I change the file to work on terminal and try to play the game

[@richardbray]

Interesting, it would be good to know what game you're having issue with. I've never used Nwjs before but it looks like a tool to convert websites to applications. Maybe there's a newer electron version of the game?

[@gizmoanimation7076]

Thank you so much!!

[@rdoggg-q1r]

It's not working and I can't get it to load please I need help

[@Maxdaperson]

Do you do anything different if the application has spaces

[@richardbray]

Not really, I think as long as you have quotation marks like I did in the video 'moths blood' spaces should work fine.

[@Maxdaperson]

@@richardbray I mean the application not the macOS file thing

[@emirhanciogl]

Thanks a lot! ❤

[@SamHunterz]

Whoa, not only a like but you also deserve a subscribe! Congrats I’m your new follower, keep up the fantastic work🙏

[@richardbray]

Thanks

[@franciskelvinwardoyo9128]

thank you so much this helped me a lot

[@richardbray]

You're welcome!

[@jordanmarji5498]

how do you fix roblox if it keeps doing the same thing but its roblox that keeps crashing?

[@richardbray]

Maybe this is an issue specific to roblox. Have you tried to download a game form itch to see if that has the issue as well?

[@jordanmarji5498]

@@richardbray yes it did have the same issue bro..

[@jordanmarji5498]

@Richard Oliver Bray btw sorry man I just saw this

[@Paxhy]

how to get terminal like you? pls tell me :(

[@Paxhy]

and how to fix quit unexpectedly??

[@richardbray]

I'm using starship starship.rs/

[@katiecampbell941]

This didn't work for me it still says it

[@Maxdaperson]

Thank you it doesn’t work on the default Mac terminal for me but it works fine on the iterm2 thing thank you

[@richardbray]

Interesting point, I can't imagine why that would be the case but I'm glad you sorted it out

[@Maxdaperson]

@@richardbray thanks

[@zillabignall]

Sir you are a lifesaver 🙏