XAMPP (Mac) Virtual host showing 403

I kept having this 403 issue and could not find an answer UNTIL...

Curly (right and left) quotes where in my vhosts file.

If you see something like "xe2\x80\x9c" in your error log then this is your problem.

I opened the httpd-vhosts.conf file in a reliable editor (I used Dreamweaver) and noticed that the quotations are curly ones (left and right quotes). They need to be straight quotes. The regular text editor on my Mac would auto change any quotes I make to these curly ones and I wasn't noticing it.

Hopefully this answer will help someone.

Just to have the answer right here: You can permit access by adding Require all granted to each VirtualHost in your httpd-vhosts.conf:

# VirtualHost for my.site.com
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    DocumentRoot "/Users/me/www/my.site.com/"
    ServerName my.site.com
    <Directory "/Users/me/www/my.site.com">
        ServerSignature Off
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks IncludesNoExec
        AllowOverride All

        #Order allow,deny  <- You can remove this
        #Allow from all    <- and that

        # Insert the following:
        Require all granted

    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Good luck!