Four gates before your first task.
Your country, your Mac, the install, and then permissions which turn out to be two separate systems asking you two different questions. Most write-ups collapse the last one into a single step, which is why people get halfway through and stall. Here is each gate in the order you actually meet it, and what to do when one shuts.
The four gates, and which ones you can argue with
Check them in this order. Two are settled before you download anything, which saves the disappointment of finding out afterwards.
Your country
Muse shipped in the United States only, and Meta has said it is expanding without naming dates. Meta AI having reached you does not mean Muse has separate products, separate rollouts.
No workaroundYour Mac
Meta's recent Mac apps need Apple silicon, with no Rosetta fallback and no universal binary. Check the chip in About This Mac before anything else.
No workaroundThe install
Not in the Mac App Store, because a sandboxed app cannot drive other apps which is the whole point of an agent. It comes from Meta directly.
StraightforwardPermissions, twice
macOS asks its own questions about what the app may do to your system. Muse separately asks which areas of your life it may work with. Different systems, different answers.
Where people stallA VPN does not solve gate one. Account region, payment details and device signals all feed into availability, and pretending to be somewhere you are not tends to produce an account problem rather than an agent. Availability in detail.
What you need, and where to verify it
Third-party requirement lists go stale between releases. Use this to know what to look for, then confirm the numbers on Meta’s own page.
| Requirement | What to check | How to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Region | United States At launch, with expansion promised but undated. | Try to sign in. A product that is not live where you are says so rather than half-working. |
| Processor | Apple silicon An M-series chip. No Rosetta path exists for these builds. | Apple menu, About This Mac. If the Chip line names an Intel processor, this is the end of the road. What is left. |
| macOS version | Recent Meta AI requires macOS 15 or later; expect Muse to be at least as demanding. | About This Mac again. Check Meta's page for the exact floor rather than assuming it matches. |
| Account | A Meta account The same one you use elsewhere, in good standing. | If sign-in loops or errors, that is an account problem rather than an install one. Sign-in trouble. |
| Where it comes from | Not the App Store Direct from Meta, like the Meta AI app. | Anything in the App Store claiming to be Muse is not Muse. Download guidance. |
| Disk and memory | Modest Meta AI installs at 16 MB; an agent is heavier but not large. | Meta publishes current figures per release. Disk space is rarely the binding constraint here. |
| Administrator access | Usually needed For the system permission prompts to be answerable. | On a managed work Mac you may not have it, and that changes things. Managed Macs. |
Muse and Meta AI are separate downloads with separate permissions. Neither requires the other, and removing one leaves the other alone.
Two systems are asking, and they are not the same question
This is the part that surprises people, and it is worth understanding before you start clicking Allow on things.
macOS asks first. Apple gates what any application may do to your system: drive other apps, read protected folders, see your screen. These arrive as system dialogue boxes, they are recorded under System Settings, Privacy & Security, and they usually need the app quit and reopened before a change takes effect. They are about capability, and they are identical in kind to what any other app would ask for.
Muse asks separately. Alongside that, the app has its own per-area grants: files, Calendar, Notes, Mail and so on. These are about which parts of your life the agent will work with, and Meta lets you turn them on and off one at a time.
Granting one layer does not grant the other. A macOS permission that is switched on does not mean Muse is using it, and a Muse area you have enabled will still fail if the system permission behind it was declined.
Practically, this is good news: it means the cautious path is easy. Answer the system prompts as they come, then enable a single Muse area files is the usual choice and leave everything else off until a reversible task has run properly a few times. You are not committing to anything by installing. What a good first task looks like.
Both layers are reversible. Muse’s areas come back off in the app, and the macOS side lives under Privacy & Security, where the checkbox is yours to clear. Expect to quit and reopen the app after either. What each area covers.
From download to first task, in order
Assuming gates one and two are clear. Fifteen minutes, most of it reading prompts properly rather than clicking through them.
Get it from Meta
Not the App Store, not a search result, not a download aggregator. Anything claiming to be Muse elsewhere is something else. Where it actually lives.
Drag to Applications, then sign in
Standard install. The Meta account is the same one you use elsewhere; if sign-in loops back to the browser, that is a known pattern with a known fix. Sign-in trouble.
Answer the macOS prompts as they arrive
System dialogues about driving other apps and reading folders. Read what each one names, and expect to quit and reopen the app afterwards.
Grant exactly one Muse area
Files. Not Mail, not Messages, not Calendar. One area is enough to find out whether an agent earns a place on your Mac. What each covers.
Run something reversible
Sorting a folder you could rebuild is the standard first task, because partly-done is harmless. How to phrase it.
Add areas one at a time, later
When a task actually needs one. There is no benefit to granting everything on day one and a clear cost if something misreads you.
What to do about each one
Two of these have real answers, one has a partial answer, and one does not have an answer at all.
Not in the United States
Wait, or use something else. A VPN changes your apparent location and not your account region, and pushing at it tends to produce an account problem instead of an agent. Alternatives.
An Intel Mac
No path forward for the agent specifically. The browser-based assistants still work fine on Intel, and that is the honest substitute. The Intel page.
A prompt never appears
Quit and reopen first macOS permission changes frequently need a relaunch. If it still never appears, look for a management profile before blaming the app. Managed Macs.
An area will not enable
Usually the system permission underneath was declined, so check Privacy & Security for the matching entry. Enabling the app-side switch alone is not enough. More fixes.
If your Mac is managed, read this before you try
A Mac issued by an employer usually carries a management profile, and that profile can decide things you cannot override: which applications may be installed, whether system permission prompts appear at all, and whether an answer you give survives the next policy refresh.
If prompts never appear, or they appear and then quietly reset themselves, that is almost always policy rather than a bug. No amount of reinstalling fixes a decision made somewhere else.
There is a second consideration beyond whether it technically works. An agent that reaches files, mail and calendar on a work machine touches material that is not yours to grant access to client work under an agreement, colleagues’ personal data, anything your employer is responsible for. Check the policy before you install rather than afterwards, and if in doubt, run it on a personal Mac instead.
To see whether your machine is managed: System Settings, then General, then Device Management. A profile listed there means someone else has a say. What each permission area reaches.
Access and setup questions
Can I use Muse on a Mac outside the United States?
Not at launch. It shipped US-only and Meta has said it is expanding without naming dates. Meta AI being available where you are does not mean Muse is separate products, separate rollouts. Availability.
Does Muse work on an Intel Mac?
Meta's recent Mac apps are Apple silicon builds with no Rosetta fallback, so an Intel machine is a hard stop. Check Meta's own requirements for the definitive answer for Muse specifically. What Intel users can do.
Is Muse in the Mac App Store?
No. An App Store app runs sandboxed, and a sandboxed app cannot drive other applications which is the entire point of an agent. Get it from Meta's own site and nowhere else. Download guidance.
Why are there two sets of permission prompts?
They come from different places. macOS gates what any app may do to your system; Muse separately gates which areas of your life it works with. Granting one does not grant the other. The two layers.
Do I need Meta AI installed as well?
No. Separate apps, separate downloads, separate permissions, and neither requires the other. Plenty of people will want both. The difference between them.
Will it work on a work Mac?
Often not. Managed Macs commonly restrict installs and can block the system prompts an agent depends on. If prompts never appear or reset themselves, that is policy rather than a bug and there is a separate question about whose data you would be granting access to. More.
Which permissions should I grant first?
Files alone, and nothing else, until a reversible task has run properly a few times. Each area is granted and revoked separately, so there is no need to decide everything on day one.
How much disk space and memory does it need?
Meta publishes current figures and they change between releases, so check its download page rather than a third-party number. For reference, the Meta AI app installs at 16 MB; disk space is rarely the binding constraint.
Can I undo a permission after granting it?
Yes, on both layers. Muse's area grants come back off in the app, and the macOS ones live under System Settings, Privacy & Security. Expect to quit and reopen the app before a change takes effect.
Nothing happens when I try to grant a permission. What now?
Quit and reopen the app first, since macOS permission changes frequently need a relaunch. If a prompt never appears at all, check System Settings, General, Device Management for a profile before assuming the app is broken. Troubleshooting.
Check the country and the chip first.
If both clear, the rest is a fifteen-minute install and two layers of permission of which you only need to answer one area on day one.
Independent guide not affiliated with Meta. Requirements and permission behaviour change between releases; check Meta’s own page before relying on any figure here.