ANX Reader on macOS: When File Access Fails Without a Single Error

I installed ANX Reader (app) on macOS because I wanted a lightweight way to open a couple of ebook files a colleague sent me. Nothing exotic: a few documents, quick skim, move on. I was setting this up on a MacBook Pro with an M1 chip, macOS Sonoma 14.1 — a machine that usually behaves.

It didn’t this time.

What followed was one of those very macOS-specific debugging sessions where nothing is technically broken, but the system quietly blocks you at every step until you learn the rules again.

---

What I was trying to do

The goal was simple: install the reader, open a local file from my Documents folder, and check formatting. I wasn’t testing features or stress-loading anything. Just open → read → close.

Download went fine. The app copied cleanly into /Applications. No warnings during install, no scary dialogs. So far, so good.

Then I launched it.

---

What actually broke

The app opened. The window showed up. Menus were responsive. But every time I tried to open a file, nothing happened. No error. No alert. Just… silence.

Drag-and-drop didn’t work either. The file icon would hover over the window, then snap back like I’d dropped it onto empty space.

At first glance, this looked like a bug in the reader itself. UI alive, core function dead.

---

First wrong assumption: “It’s probably the file format”

My initial thought was that the files themselves were the problem. Maybe they were malformed, maybe unsupported. So I tried a couple of different documents, including one I knew opened fine on another machine.

Same result. Zero reaction.

I checked the app’s menu items — “Open” was enabled, not greyed out. Clicking it brought up the file picker, but selecting a file and confirming did nothing.

At this point, I briefly considered reinstalling or hunting for an older build. That would’ve been wasted time.

---

Second attempt: reinstall and clear preferences

I removed the app, deleted its container folder from ~/Library/Containers, rebooted (because sometimes that actually helps), and reinstalled.

Exact same behavior.

The key detail here: the app never crashed. It wasn’t unstable. It just couldn’t see my files.

That’s when the real issue clicked.

---

The actual problem: macOS permissions, again

On recent macOS versions, apps don’t automatically get access to user files — even if they look like basic utilities. If the permission prompt doesn’t appear at the right moment, the system just blocks access silently.

In this case, ANX Reader never triggered the permission dialog, so macOS defaulted to “no access,” without telling either of us.

The fix wasn’t inside the app.

I went to System Settings → Privacy & Security → Files and Folders, and sure enough, the reader wasn’t listed with access to Documents or Desktop. Manually granting access solved it immediately.

Apple explains this behavior (and why apps don’t always get prompted automatically) in their official documentation:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/control-access-to-files-and-folders-mchld5a35146/mac

After enabling access, I relaunched the app, opened the same file, and it loaded instantly. No lag. No warnings. Exactly how it should’ve worked from the start.

---

One more small macOS gotcha

Because the app was downloaded outside the App Store, Gatekeeper rules still apply. While it did launch normally for me, I checked extended attributes just in case. If someone runs into a “can’t be opened” message, Apple’s Gatekeeper explanation is still the canonical reference:
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/open-a-mac-app-from-an-unidentified-developer-mh40616/mac

There is an App Store search entry for the same name, which might behave differently permission-wise if installed from there:
https://apps.apple.com/us/search?term=ANX%20Reader

But for a direct download, privacy settings matter more than people expect.

---

Where I found useful context

While sorting this out, I bookmarked this page because it helped confirm I wasn’t dealing with a corrupted build or some obscure incompatibility with macOS file systems. It’s a decent reference point if you’re setting this up on a modern Mac:
https://smohamad.com/office-and-productivity/23348-anx-reader.html

I originally stumbled across the tool while looking through a small OrchardKit-curated list of macOS productivity utilities, which is probably why I expected it to “just work.”

---

What actually fixed it

To summarize without turning this into a checklist manifesto:

• Reinstalling didn’t help
• Different files didn’t help
• The app itself wasn’t broken

What worked was explicitly allowing file access in macOS Privacy & Security settings. Once that was done, the reader behaved exactly like a normal desktop app should.

---

What I’d do differently next time

Any time a macOS app opens fine but refuses to interact with files — no errors, no crashes, just nothing — I now assume it’s a permissions issue until proven otherwise.

Before blaming the software, I’d check:

• Files & Folders permissions
• Full Disk Access if relevant
• Gatekeeper status if the app won’t launch

macOS security is doing its job, but it’s not very chatty about it. And when the OS goes quiet, it’s easy to blame the wrong thing.

Once past that hurdle, ANX Reader turned out to be perfectly fine. The problem wasn’t the tool — it was macOS deciding, silently, that it knew better.