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Draft. This article depends on an open product question and is not ready to publish.
If Elephas does not open after you install it, the cause is almost always your operating system’s install protection, an unsupported computer, or an app opened from the wrong place. Find the message you see below and follow its fix.

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Before you start

  • Download Elephas only from elephas.app. Never use the steps below for a copy you got anywhere else.
  • Check that your computer is supported: an Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or later) with macOS 14 Sonoma or later, or a 64-bit (x64) PC with Windows 10 version 22H2 or Windows 11. See system requirements.
  • On a work computer, your IT team may control which apps you can install or open.

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Steps

1

Open Elephas from Applications

Eject the Elephas disk image if it is still mounted. Open your Applications folder and double-click Elephas there, not the copy inside the DMG window.
2

Answer the first-open prompt

If macOS asks whether you are sure you want to open an app downloaded from the internet, click Open.
3

If macOS blocks the app, allow it once

If macOS says it could not verify Elephas and only offers Done or Move to Trash, click Done. Then open System Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll down to Security, and click Open Anyway next to the line about Elephas. Confirm with your Mac password, then click Open Anyway again in the dialog that follows.
4

Open Elephas again

Double-click Elephas in Applications. macOS remembers your choice, so you only do this once.

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Messages and fixes

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Mac

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Windows

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How it works

Mac. macOS Gatekeeper checks every app you download before its first launch. An app that Apple has verified opens after one confirmation. An app macOS cannot verify is blocked until you allow it in Privacy & Security. Since macOS 15 Sequoia, the old Control-click and Open shortcut no longer skips this check, so Open Anyway is the way to allow it. Windows. SmartScreen warns about downloads that are new or rarely downloaded, even when they are signed. The warning is about how familiar the download is to Microsoft, not about what the app does. Allowing Elephas to open changes nothing about how it treats your documents. Indexing happens on your computer. Always. See where your data is stored.

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What happens next

The first time Elephas opens, it downloads about 50 MB of on-device components and shows Getting Elephas ready at the bottom of the window. If that download stops with an error, see first-run download failed. If Elephas opens but stops on an error message, see Elephas won’t start.

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Troubleshooting

The button appears only for a short time after macOS blocks an app. Try to open Elephas from Applications once more, click Done, then go straight to System Settings › Privacy & Security.
The install worked. The problem is at startup. See Elephas won’t start, then contact support with your log file if it keeps happening.
Read moving from classic Elephas before you install, so you do not replace the app you rely on today.

Install Elephas on Mac

Install Elephas on Windows

System requirements

Contact support