diff --git a/apps/desktop/scripts/electron-launcher.mjs b/apps/desktop/scripts/electron-launcher.mjs
index 8f20001bbb0..a25d08996bd 100644
--- a/apps/desktop/scripts/electron-launcher.mjs
+++ b/apps/desktop/scripts/electron-launcher.mjs
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ export const APP_BUNDLE_ID = isDevelopment
   ? `com.t3tools.t3code.dev.${devBundleIdSuffix || "local"}`
   : "com.t3tools.t3code";
 const APP_PROTOCOL_SCHEMES = isDevelopment ? ["t3code-dev"] : ["t3code"];
-const LAUNCHER_VERSION = 10;
+const LAUNCHER_VERSION = 11;
 const defaultIconPath = join(desktopDir, "resources", "icon.icns");
 const developmentMacIconPngPath = join(repoRoot, "assets", "dev", "blueprint-macos-1024.png");
 
@@ -295,7 +295,11 @@ function buildMacLauncher(electronBinaryPath) {
   }
 
   rmSync(targetAppBundlePath, { recursive: true, force: true });
-  cpSync(sourceAppBundlePath, targetAppBundlePath, { recursive: true });
+  // verbatimSymlinks keeps the framework's relative symlinks intact
+  // (e.g. Resources -> Versions/Current/Resources). Without it cpSync
+  // rewrites them to absolute paths into node_modules, which escape the
+  // bundle and crash sandboxed helper processes (icudtl.dat not found).
+  cpSync(sourceAppBundlePath, targetAppBundlePath, { recursive: true, verbatimSymlinks: true });
   patchMainBundleInfoPlist(targetAppBundlePath, iconPath);
   patchHelperBundleInfoPlists(targetAppBundlePath);
   if (isDevelopment) {