Have you ever seen something like

as you tried to open a purchase from the Mac App Store?

What a dramatic way to ruin your day! Words like “damaged” and “delete” can terrify you because – heaven forbid! – they sound like your data is about to evaporate (it’s not), never to be seen again. Just know this: You’re not alone. We’re right here with you and, with a few exceptions, we’re going to help you get everything back to normal in 5 easy steps. Here we go:

0. Before we dive into step 1, please be assured this message does not mean your data is at risk. Yes, you’re about to remove and reinstall the application, but your data lives in a separate document file, fairly safe from anything that can happen while installing a fresh copy of an application. Once more, just to put you at ease, your data is safe.
1. Click the OK button to dismiss the alert telling you the application is damaged.
2. Click the Finder icon on your Dock, the row of icons that’s usually at the bottom of your screen.
3. Go to the Go menu at the top of your screen, above all open windows, and click the Applications menu item.
4. Drag the application, in our example CheckBook with a full-sized checkbook, credit card, and green pen icon, never an icon of a sheet of paper with a dog ear, to the Trash. You may need to enter your Mac user account password to continue.
5. For folks who’ve purchased one of our applications, click one of the following to go directly to its product page on the Mac App Store:
   
     Audiobook Builder 2.x
     CheckBook 2.x
     CheckBook Pro 2.x
     PixelGriddle 1.x
     Return Labels 1.x
   
   For anyone reading this who purchased another developer’s application, go to the Apple () menu at the top left corner of your screen, click the App Store… menu item to go to the Mac App Store, then use the Search at the top of the window to find your application and go to its product page.
   
6. If you see an Install button next to the application icon at the top of the page, click it. That’s it. You’re back in business!

So… what if you didn’t see the Install button in step 6? When you see a price tag, instead, then the Mac App Store is asking you to purchase again – and it definitely will charge if you click the price tag. In that case, one of the following is true:

• The Apple Account (or Apple ID, as they were known until macOS 15 Sequoia) signed into the Mac App Store isn’t the one you used for your purchase. This usually happens when you’ve switched Apple Accounts at some point, or if a friend or family member installed an application using their Apple Account. Go to the Store menu at the top of the screen, above all open windows, click the Sign Out menu item, click the Sign In button at the bottom left corner of the window, sign in with the Apple Account used for the original purchase, then repeat step 6 (though you may need to repeat step 5 first).
• Apple processed a return for your purchase so there’s no record of the application belonging to your current Apple Account. If you don’t recall returning your purchase or you’re sure you didn’t purchase with another Apple Account, you’ll want to get in touch with Apple to verify what’s happened lest you purchase again without need. Start at https://support.apple.com/billing.
• The Mac App Store is malfunctioning in some way and doesn’t know your Apple Account has a valid purchase on record. Like the point just before this, you’ll want to get in touch with Apple to verify what’s happened lest you purchase again without need. Start at https://support.apple.com/billing.

We’d like to make it clear here that we’re not asking a new purchase – the Mac App Store is behaving the only way it knows how to: without a valid purchase on record for the current Apple Account it must act like a new purchase is being made. If we could prevent this from happening we most certainly would.

Those ideas should help you figure out where your Apple Account stands with Apple, in terms of what you’ve purchased or returned. You can decide where to go from there. Some folks have an aha! moment, remember they used a different Apple Account long ago, and away they go to sign in that way and reinstall from there. Others don’t remember or can’t get to previous Apple Account passwords so their only option is to purchase again. We wish there was another way to make this work, but if you want to keep getting updates from the Mac App Store it’s the only way. Still other folks have their own aha! moment, recall returning their purchase, and choose to purchase again. We’ve never heard of an actual malfunction, per se, on the Mac App Store where purchases couldn’t be found, but it’s always possible. We really just threw that in for completeness.

Don’t forget: When all else fails, reach out to support@splasm.com and we’ll be happy to help you figure it out.

A bit more (technical) detail

If you’re wondering what’s really happening under the hood, it boils down to this: The Mac App Store places a receipt file in each purchased application. The receipt includes a certificate the application uses to validate that receipt to be sure you’ve made a bona fide purchase. That certificate is only valid for a limited amount of time – in our experience, up to about 25 months, though sometimes significantly less, which could indicate the App Store renews these certificates every so often. So, when you see this “damaged” message out of the blue, it’s almost surely because the certificate in the receipt has expired. You could set the date on your Mac back a bit to work around it, but you really want to straighten things out so you don’t have to go through that fun every time you sit down to use an application.

Usually, and as long as your current Apple Account has a valid purchase for the application in question, you won’t ever see the “damaged” message because the application will tell the Mac the receipt’s invalid, the Mac will automatically refresh your receipt, and you’re on your way. You should only see the message in those three cases we outlined above. And, in a touch of irony, the latest versions of most of our applications won’t trigger the “damaged” message in any case: Instead of telling the Mac your receipt is invalid, our applications now ask the Mac App Store directly for a fresh copy of your receipt. If that fails, instead of “damaged” you’ll see a blurb that the receipt couldn’t be refreshed that asks you to reinstall and takes you directly to the product page on the Mac App Store. So, less drama and fewer steps, but the same result – you’ll still need to sort out why the Mac App Store doesn’t want to refresh your receipt, which almost always comes down to the current Apple Account isn’t the one used for the original purchase.

Again, if any of this overwhelms you, or if you need reassurance about your data (it’s fine, as long as you only throw out the application itself and not the document file, but we completely understand data anxiety!), contact us at support@splasm.com and we’ll jump into the mix with you!