Three different ways to link to files, and two for folders. Which should you use, and how well do they cope with changes in that volume?
bookmarks
A full toolset for working with extended attributes, everything you might want to know about files, and a text-only Rich Text editor, all ready for Tahoe.
Symlinks are popular but prove fragile when folders get renamed or moved. Hard links don’t support directories and can’t cross volumes. The alias works best overall, but isn’t supported in Terminal.
Introduced in System 7 in 1991, long before symbolic and hard links became available in Mac OS X, they’ve been revised and extended to bookmarks since.
What is that text-encoded data embedded in so many Property Lists? Most are Bookmarks, and here’s how to decode them.
How does macOS track Recent items for apps? In a property list, using a Base-64 encoded Bookmark. Here’s how to decode, resolve and discover their contents.
Which should you use, and what are their strengths and drawbacks? Symbolic links, hard links, aliases and bookmarks explained – oh, and a mention of firmlinks too.
Now shows the space taken on disk, which makes it easy to identify sparse files.
This has minor improvements to work better with Big Sur, and now runs native on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
They’re Base-64 encoded data which is related to the Finder Alias. Here’s how to resolve them in an app, at the command line, and in code.
The Eclectic Light Company 