Hey buddy, so I was poking around with Baidu Input yesterday—this Chinese input method editor (IME) for typing pinyin-to‑hanzi on macOS that I needed for transcribing some client docs with mixed English/Chinese technical terms. Wanted it as a quick system‑wide keyboard switcher without messing with built‑in Pinyin or RIME's config hell. Downloaded the PKG from their mirror site, double‑clicked expecting standard installer flow on my M2 MacBook Air running Sonoma 14.7.2. Slammed with "BaiduInput.pkg is damaged and can't be opened." No override dialog, no installer progress—just straight Gatekeeper rejection straight to Trash recommendation.[support.apple.com/en-us/HT202491]
Kicked off with the usual right‑click → Open trick on the PKG, fingers crossed for that "are you sure" popup. Dialog appeared once, authenticated... installer bar crept to 23%, then choked with "postinstall script failed: sandbox_exec deny network_outbound." Exact same "damaged" sheet on relaunch. Figured maybe corrupt mirror, so I curl'd the PKG direct (skipping browser quarantine), verified SHA256 against their release page (matched), ran sudo installer -pkg BaiduInput.pkg -target / -dumplog. Postflight died again: tccd blocking IME helper from phoning home to Baidu servers for dictionary updates. Apps.apple.com pulls nothing (IME searches hit Apple’s defaults only), pure enterprise PKG territory.
What sank in after verbose logging was Sonoma's IME sandboxing got brutal—Baidu's post‑install agent needs Local Network + Full Disk to register input sources and pull cloud dictionaries, but Gatekeeper kills unsigned PKGs touching keyboard services upfront. Apple's runtime docs confirm: non‑notarized IMEs spawning network helpers get double‑blocked.[support.apple.com/guide/security/gatekeeper-and-runtime-protection-sec5599b66df/web] Right‑click only clears surface quarantine; PKG postflight scripts run sandboxed regardless.
The sequence that got hanzi flowing was PKG receipt nuke + manual agent injection. Terminal first: sudo pkgutil --forget cn.baidu.input.pkg to erase installer traces, sudo rm -rf ~/Library/Input\ Methods/BaiduInput ~/Library/Preferences/cn.baidu.*. Extracted PKG contents via pkgutil --expand BaiduInput.pkg ExpandedPKG, manually copied Payload to /Applications. Privacy → Local Network + Full Disk → added /Applications/BaiduInput.app/Contents/Library/Input Methods/BaiduInput.ime. Reboot, System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources → added Baidu Pinyin. Pinyin conversion spot‑on (95% first‑pass accuracy), cloud sync pulled 2.3M vocab entries. I found this page useful flagging the Sonoma Input Methods path for third‑party IMEs: https://personalizedsiliconebracelets.xyz/office-and-productivity/89688-baidu-input.html.
Once registered, switches seamless via Cmd+Space, handles fuzzy pinyin + English inline clean. ~45MB RAM idle, native M2 ARM64 dictionaries.
Short checklist for dodging IME installer purgatory next time:
sudo pkgutil --forget cn.baidu.input.pkg + Input Methods purge upfront.[support.apple.com/en-us/102445]
pkgutil --expand PKG, manual Payload copy to /Applications.
Local Network/Full Disk → Contents/Library/Input Methods/*.ime binary.
System Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources post‑reboot.
Hanzi transcription bliss unlocked. Beats RIME yak shaving. Talk soon.