I have released Recent Menu 1.2.1 today. It looks like a small update, and indeed it doesn’t bring new features. However, it is a real milestone as it adds support for OS X’s sandbox to Recent Menu. This is good not only because it increases the security of systems running Recent Menu. Due to new Apple Mac App Store policies, without sandbox support it would have been impossible to add any features to Recent Menu. Now, with Recent Menu 1.2.1, I can go on to add fancy new features to it.

Sandbox support in Recent Menu means that by itself the app doesn’t have any access to your file system (with some minor exceptions). To be able to monitor files and folders you’ve recently opened or modified, it needs this access, though. In order to have access rights, you have to give Recent Menu your consent. You have to do this only once and you will be prompted by the app to do so:

Recent Menu Sandbox Access Dialog

Without access rights, Recent Menu will not work. Unfortunately, adding sandbox support and thereby securing the future of Recent Menu development also means to drop support for older versions of OS X. Starting with Recent Menu 1.2.1, OS X Snow Leopard won’t be supported anymore and you’ll need at least OS X 10.7.4 to install the update. I regret this step but saw no other way. I sincerely hope that with the release of OS X 10.8 a few days ago many Recent Menu users will have at least OS X 10.7 installed.

As always, the Recent Menu 1.2.1 update is available on the Mac App Store. For existing customers, it is a free update.