“Windows protected your PC” and “evoftp is damaged”

“Windows protected your PC” and “evoftp is damaged and can’t be opened” mean the same thing: the evoftp build you downloaded is not code-signed with a Microsoft or Apple developer certificate, so the operating system cannot vouch for who made it. Neither message is a virus detection. Do this, depending on the message you see.

Windows: “Windows protected your PC”

This is SmartScreen reacting to an exe it has not seen enough times to trust.

1. Click More info in the blue dialog.
2. Click Run anyway.

It only happens the first time you run the exe from a given location. If you move the exe later, you may see it once more.

macOS 14 and earlier: “evoftp cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified”

1. Do not double-click. Right-click (or Control-click) evoftp.app in your Applications folder.
2. Choose Open from the menu.
3. Click Open in the dialog. macOS remembers the choice; double-click works from then on.

macOS 15 Sequoia and newer: “evoftp Not Opened”

Sequoia removed the right-click shortcut. Use System Settings instead.

1. Double-click evoftp.app once and dismiss the “Not Opened” dialog.
2. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security and scroll down to the Security section.
3. Next to the line about evoftp being blocked, click Open Anyway.
4. Confirm with your password or Touch ID, then click Open.

macOS: “evoftp is damaged and can’t be opened. You should move it to the Bin.”

The app is not damaged. macOS attaches a quarantine flag to every downloaded file, and on an unsigned app it words the refusal this way. Remove the flag:

1. Move evoftp.app to your Applications folder if it is not there already.
2. Open Terminal (Applications → Utilities).
3. Paste this line and press Return:

   xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/evoftp.app

4. Double-click evoftp.app. If you kept the app somewhere else, change the path in the command to match.

Why the build is unsigned

evoftp is a young project. The Windows exe is not signed at all; the macOS builds are ad-hoc signed but not notarised by Apple, which is what Gatekeeper checks for. Code signing is planned, but there is no date for it yet. Until then the warnings above will appear on every fresh download. The source code is public under the GPL-3.0 licence, so anyone can read what the app does.

Checking the download is genuine

These warnings are safe to click through only for a file you got from us. evoftp is distributed from one place: https://neo.myseedbox.site/share/evoftp/, which is also where the client area and the guide link to. If you downloaded an “evoftp” from any other site, delete it and fetch it again from that folder.

Note: On macOS the unsigned build stores saved passwords unencrypted in the app’s config folder. If that matters to you, leave the password field empty and type it at each connect.

Overview: evoftp guide.