Meta indicates that its Muse AI proxy is unable to read your Messages on Mac, unless you allow it to do so, which contradicts a claim made last week by a technology journalist that Muse "fully saw" his iMessages without permission.
The company's communications officer, Andy Stone, stated on Wednesday on X that this integration is "completely optional."
"Unless you set it up this way, it will not be able to read your Messages. And you can revoke it at any time," he wrote.
Stone said that it is necessary to turn on two switches at the same time. One is Full Disk Access, which is a setting in Apple's Mac software that allows applications to read files from any location on your computer. The other is the Messages connector, which is the switch for Muse regarding that particular application. Both of these permissions can be revoked at any time.
Let's get one thing straight: The integration of Muse and app on Mac is completely optional. You must enable both the Full Disk Access and Messages connectors in order for Muse to be able to read the content within your Messages. Unless you do so, it will not be able to read your Messages. And it can... Andy Stone wrote on September 30, 2026.
He is responding to the report from AppleInsider. The media cited the experience of Jason Aten, a columnist for Inc, stating that despite setting permissions, this AI still uploaded his text messages to the cloud.
Aten says what happened
Muse is a personal AI agent. That is to say, it is not just software for answering questions; it can also perform actions on your behalf, such as sending emails or booking trips. Meta launched this product on September 8th, and by September 23rd, its download count had already exceeded...
Meta builds Muse within Superintelligence Labs, which is the company's AI research department; the first model of this department, Muse Spark, was released on April 8th.
Aten said that he installed Muse on a iPhone and a Mac. He stated that during the setup process, he refused its request to access messages, and he checked afterwards to confirm that Full Disk Access was in a closed state.
Subsequently, Muse proposed a topic for a column to him based on a private text message exchange with his podcast partner. It also highlighted a message from an editor regarding a deadline.
When he asked how it knew this information, Muse said that they only saw the prompt from the new notification pop-up. Aten claimed that this was not true. He discovered that Muse had already synchronized the local Messages database, which is the file that Mac uses to save SMS history records.
Meta How to say it
Singleton also indicates that reading Messages requires three permission steps. Even if the Muse application has bug, the protection mechanism of macOS cannot be bypassed.
Aten said that the Full Disk Access on his machine was clearly turned off, but the text messages were still synchronized. Meta stated that without this permission, Muse would not be able to read Messages.
Why is this switch important?
AI The proxy will use the permissions you grant it, so the permission page serves as a line of defense. Your text messages may contain family chats, as well as verification codes used by banks to confirm your identity.
This dispute is not just about Meta. On September 21, Amazon began to block Muse, claiming that it did not identify itself during browsing and seemed to be capturing customer credentials. Meta stated that Muse was unable to see the passwords or payment methods.
Amazon won the first round in a similar dispute. On March 10, a federal judge approved a preliminary injunction—a court order that remains in effect while the case is being heard—to prevent Perplexity's Comet from shopping on Amazon for users.
