How do I disable quarantine on Lion?

Solution 1:

Never tried to disable the behavior entirely, but you can always remove the quarantine from a file with xattr. For example:

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine ./*

I think of it less as a moron check than it is a safeguard from browser vulnerabilities that might otherwise download and something without your knowledge.

Solution 2:

Here's a simple Automator folder action that will remove the quarantine flag from files as they are downloaded to the Downloads folder:

1. Make a new Folder Action workflow in Automator
2. In the "Choose folder" menu, choose your Downloads folder
3. Add a "Run Shell Script" command
4. Change the "Pass input" menu to "as arguments"
5. Change the script to:

for f in "$@"
do
    xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "$f"
done

Finally, save the workflow with whatever name you want and it should start working immediately.