iMessage/Facetime

[Anthony715]

I'm still kind of new to Jamf, I had an incident on Friday and need to disable iMessage and Facetime but can't figure out how.

[awoodbury]

You could add them to Restricted Software on the Mac side. for iPadOS, you could push out a Configuration Profile.

[awoodbury]

The "F" in "for" is supposed to be capitalized, apparently, you can only make 1 Edit...

[Anthony715]

thank you it's all good.

[Fluffy]

Using a profile for the correct type of device, add a Safelist and Blocklist payload.

For macOS, you'll need the path of the app. System apps have a path slightly different than regular apps. Verify on a device by using Get Info, but it should be something like this:

/System/Applications/FaceTime.app
/System/Application/Messages.app

For iOS, same payload, but they are added from a list instead. Clicking on Add Application will open up a window, where FaceTime and Messages should be listed under Default Applications.

Edit: Should mention that for macOS, if the path changes for the app, the blocklist won't block it anymore. So, if the user is able to move or rename the app, they will be able to get around it.

[pbileci]

For Mac OS, just use Restricted Software. But make sure you block the process name, not the app name. So, if you want to block Messages.app from running, put Messages* in the box for process name and uncheck the box for exact name. This will stop the process from running, no matter what they might rename it to. This works well, but it creates one minor issue that I'm trying to find a solution to. Mac OS wants to load iMessage on startup/login, so users get our block message every time they log in. I'd like to stop Mac OS from even loading the process on log in. Although, I could just turn off our block message, but I like to remind students that iMessage isn't allowed on student computers.

[Fluffy]

I do not believe the Restricted Software is an available feature in Jamf School.

[pbileci]

Ah, we're using Jamf Pro. That's the only Jamf product that I'm familiar with. That has been a really useful feature for us since they implemented it.

[Swordfish]

This doesn't work at all for me. Messages opens with no issues. There should be an easy way to disable the app from opening, period.