Learn how to easily remove the message "Ignore insecure directories and continue or abort compinit" that appears every time you launch a terminal in MacOS BigSur.

How to remove the zsh message in the terminal of MacOS BigSur: Ignore insecure directories and continue or abort compinit

A month ago, I had to create the configuration file of my default shell, which is zsh in my Macbook M1. After that, the curious message started to appear every time I launched a new instance of the terminal:

Last Login: Today
zsh compinit: insecure directories, run compaudit for list.
Ignore insecure directories and continue [Y] or abort compinit [N]?

It would be alright to simply continue pressing Y and that's it, however, if you close the terminal and launch it again, it will appear again! Tedious as hell. That's why today I'm going to explain to you how to easily disable this prompt from appearing in your terminal.

How to prevent the message from appearing

Launch a terminal, skip the prompt as always with Y and type the following command to edit the file in your terminal using nano:

nano ~/.zshrc

At the beginning of this file, add the following property:

ZSH_DISABLE_COMPFIX=true

Save the changes by pressing Ctrl + X and close any opened terminal. Launch a new instance and the prompt won't appear anymore!

Happy coding ❤️!


Senior Software Engineer at Software Medico. Interested in programming since he was 14 years old, Carlos is a self-taught programmer and founder and author of most of the articles at Our Code World.

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