Insomnia cannot access the file ... . You can adjust this in Preferences → Security.

[FeeJai]

Expected Behavior

When I make a POST request query with a file as the request body it uploads the file

Actual Behavior

Since the last Insomnia or Mac OS update it is no longer is able to do queries with files attached.

Giving Full Disk Access permissions to Insomnia in the Mac OS Privacy & Security settings does not resolve the issue. Unfortunately the Settings pane does not allow to give permission for the downloads folder, it needs to be requested by the app which it apparently does not do.

Reproduction Steps

See screenshot above

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [x] I have searched the issue tracker for this problem.

Which sync method do you use?

• [x] Git sync.
• [ ] Insomnia Cloud sync.
• [ ] Local only

Additional Information

No response

Insomnia Version

Version: Insomnia 11.5.0 Build date: 8/26/2025 OS: Darwin arm64 24.6.0 Electron: 37.2.6 Node: 22.17.1 Node ABI: 136 V8: 13.8.258.30-electron.0 Architecture: arm64

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System Version

Mac OS Sequoia 15.6.1 (24G90)

Installation method

Download pkg from Github

Last Known Working Insomnia version

No response

[ihexxa]

Hi @FeeJai, we've improved the security which rejects unpermitted fs accessing. Please add the directory or parent folder (/Users/fjank...) to the Preference -> General -> see the follow screenshot, and retry.

I may not fully understand "Unfortunately the Settings pane does not allow to give permission for the downloads folder, it needs to be requested by the app which it apparently does not do.", probably we could also move the file to another folder?

[FeeJai]

I may not fully understand "Unfortunately the Settings pane does not allow to give permission for the downloads folder, it needs to be requested by the app which it apparently does not do.", probably we could also move the file to another folder?

I was referring to the Mac OS system file access restrictions. I mistakenly thought that this was an OS permission issue and not Insomnia internal setting.

Please add the directory or parent folder (/Users/fjank...) to the Preference -> General -> see the follow screenshot, and retry.

I can confirm this fixed my issue. However, I asked multiple other users and everyone made the same mistake. This is probably a UI bug.

I would recommend to change the error message from "unhandled error" to something along the lines of "The folder /xyz/abc/def has not been approved for read access in the insomnia settings" and adding a button to the error message that will open the correct settings pane and scroll down to the correct settings

[ihexxa]

@FeeJai Thanks for the feedback and these are valid points, team is already on top of the improvement and please keep this issue open.

[luispollo]

Just wanted to +1 @FeeJai's feedback -- I made the same mistake and spent a couple days before finding this issue scratching my head and unsuccessfully trying to fix the permission problem!

[sianida26]

Why is this happen?

[ihexxa]

Hi @sianida26 , please check if there's any param which hasn't been assigned file path. (in the Body or the Params tab)

[jpwiedekopf]

This just caught me out too, and I also only went to the 'Security' pref pane in macOS settings rather than the Insomnia dialog. Technically speaking, this should also not be an unexpected failure, it is testable before the request is even attempted to be sent if this error will occur.

Maybe there should be a (small!) 'approve this folder' button in the UI? No real security is gained by sending the user to the preferences dialog instead of allowing approvals in the error dialog.

[optikalefx]

Agreed that this is a UI Bug. I had to find this thread to figure out. It also doesn't help that the instructions say "Preferences -> Security" When the actual fix is (On Mac) is "Settings -> Security -> What folders can Insomnia access?"

The use of the word Preferences when it's actually "Settings" makes all of us think it's a Mac OS setting and not an insomnia setting.

But also, more importantly, this system is not actually secure. You SHOULD be using the built-in Mac OS security access setting. Insomnia should (Like all other apps) request access to Downloads folder and then we would see that access under Mac OS -> Privacy & Security -> Files & Folders.

Like this

This is what Mac OS users have been used to for years, and Insomnia should follow the normal way of doing things here.

[Pac0o]

Exactly same mistake here on MacOS.

And the problem it's that it looks a lot like the permission error you get from MacOs.

As optikalefx says, the word "Preferences" is misleading.

Thanks for all your awesome work!!!

[FeeJai]

Well, I guess the feedback here is clear

I would actually encourage you to remove this feature entirely. No security is gained whatsoever if this is validated internally inside the same app. Instead you should use the Mac OS file system restrictions

I see the wording was slightly adjusted yesterday ins #9076, however I think that is still extremely bad UX without any security gain whatsoever

[AbiriAmir]

The add button doesn't work for me at all. When I press the add button, nothing happens.

[krashen]

@AbiriAmir yeah, same happens to me, I can't send files to an endpoint because I can't add folders

[klepov]

@AbiriAmir @krashen Copy the path and paste it (cmd + c / cmd + v) into the input field and click the "Add" button. P.S. Make sure the slashes are correct.

[PauloRdaSilva13]

eu estou com o mesmo problema na importação de imagens. porem eu tenho um windows 11 ainda estou procurando alguma solução para o problema

[arthursmd]

The add button doesn't work for me at all. When I press the add button, nothing happens.

That is the main issue. This UI is a bit misleading. To recap, you need to paste a path and then click the Add button. I would suggest to change the Add button to a ➕ or similar.