macOS Catalina doesn't allow MAMP permission to certain folders (Documents, Downloads, Desktop) I have been using MAMP for a few years now, I just updated to macOS Catalina, it seems that macOS Catalina is blocking permissions to the Documents folder among a few others (such as Downloads and Desktop).

I have already checked the permissions on these files with terminal and that doesn't seem to be the issue.

Additionally I have 

The server gives me this error:

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access /Users/xxx/Downloads/index.html on this server.


The Apache log gives me this error:

[Wed Oct 09 12:31:30 2019] [error] [client ::1] (1)Operation not permitted: file permissions deny server access: /Users/xxx/Downloads/index.html, referer: http://localhost/Users/xxx/


It seems to be an issue with the way macOS is restricting permissions to certain directories. In the settings panel under Security and Privacy there are additional settings for file access, I have granted MAMP those permissions, in addition I have also went inside the MAMP folder and granted Apache's httpd the same permissions, still no luck.

Does anyone have a work around? This is causing me such a headache in development.
Catalina has more restrictions on system folders which we can apply an exception:


Open System Preferences -> Security and Privacy -> Privacy tab -> Full Disk Access -> Press 'Unlock to make changes' padlock
Open Finder Window -> "Go" menu -> "Go to folder" -> type "/usr/sbin/"
Drag the file "httpd" to the list inside the Full Disk Access settings.
Restart Mamp servers