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ZenHive
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ZenHive for Mac

A single app, signed and notarised, that reads your iMessage history where it already lives. Nothing to configure, no server to sign up for, and no account until you want the paid half.

Download the DMGWhat’s free, what’s paid

Hosted on GitHub Releases. The app updates itself from there afterwards.

macOS
macOS 26.2 or later
Chip
Apple silicon
Messages
Signed in to iMessage on this Mac
Apple Intelligence
Optional — it reads conversations on your Mac
Disk
About 40 MB, plus a little room for your own history

First run

Three things, once.

  1. 01

    Move it to Applications

    Open the DMG and drag ZenHive across. It is signed with a Developer ID and notarised by Apple, so Gatekeeper opens it without argument. Updates arrive in the app itself.

  2. 02

    Grant Full Disk Access

    ZenHive will ask, and will not work until you do. The steps are below, and they take about twenty seconds.

  3. 03

    Browse for as long as you like

    Messages is free forever and needs no account. Sign in only when you want to try Follow Up, which is 14 days free and asks for no card.

The permission

Why an app like this has to ask for all of it.

macOS protects your Messages history, and the only key it offers is Full Disk Access — there is no narrower “read Messages” permission for an app to request. So ZenHive asks for the broad one, and then owes you an account of what it does with it.

It reads your messages where they already are, and changes nothing. The model that reads a conversation is Apple’s, running on your Mac. The only thing that ever leaves the machine is your email address and whether your subscription is paid up.

The full privacy policy says the same thing at greater length, and in the language of a policy.

Granting it

  1. 01Open System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Full Disk Access.ZenHive has a button that opens this pane directly.
  2. 02Press + and choose ZenHive from your Applications folder.Or drag ZenHive from a Finder window straight onto the list — same result, whichever is easier.
  3. 03Make sure its switch is on.macOS sometimes adds an app to the list switched off.
  4. 04Quit ZenHive and open it again.macOS only looks at this permission when the app starts, so ZenHive will not notice the change until then. There is a Quit & Reopen button for it.
Nothing about this is reversible-only-by-us: take ZenHive out of that list at any time and it goes back to seeing nothing at all. There is no copy of your history anywhere else to keep working from.

If it goes wrong

Most first-run trouble is one of four things.

Read the support notes

  1. The switch is off

    macOS sometimes adds an app to the Full Disk Access list without turning it on. An app in the list, switched off, has exactly the access of an app that is not in the list.

  2. It was never relaunched

    macOS only looks at this permission when the app starts. If ZenHive was open while you granted it, it will keep seeing nothing until you quit and open it again.

  3. You cannot find the setting

    System Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Full Disk Access — though macOS has moved that pane more than once between versions. ZenHive has a button that opens it directly, wherever it lives on your Mac.

  4. Messages has never run on this Mac

    Then there is no message history for ZenHive to read yet. Open Messages, sign in to iMessage, and let it sync — ZenHive reads the messages already on your Mac and keeps none of its own.