AirDrop is very convenient, but sets the quarantine flag, which can break Apple’s installer apps. Here’s how to remove those flags in a couple of minutes.
extended attributes
Thirty years ago, many Macs were hit by the Wdef virus, which exploited a vulnerability which remains today: it travelled in an extended attribute. Should we be worried now?
So convenient to use – edit them in the Comments: section of Finder’s Get Info dialog. But as reliable as loose scraps of paper, and as easily lost.
Unlike file data, metadata has varying persistence. Some is ephemeral, others sticky. macOS has inbuilt mechanisms for managing the persistence of extended attributes.
Most quarantine flags in your Mac aren’t on apps but documents. Details of how they’re added, what info they contain, and what they do.
All about xattrs: their origin, where they’re stored, how they’re named and typed, how to find and work with them, and their common problems.
The equivalent of cmp, only it works on extended attributes rather than file data.
Tools for editing metadata which is generally well-preserved, including copyright and keywords. Now native on all Macs.
Lightweight metadata editor now runs native on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
This can now be incorporated into your own scripts, to check the integrity of important files automatically.
