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.
Precize
Confused by this on APFS? So you should be, as it’s complicated by features like snapshots, sparse files, and the file system itself. There’s no single figure.
Many think that a file’s type is determined by its extension. Although partly true, that’s indirect: it’s the UTI which sets the type, as explained here.
Adds support for reporting whether a file is a sparse file, or has been cloned, in Big Sur.
Now shows the space taken on disk, which makes it easy to identify sparse files.
How can you create and resolve Finder Aliases at the command line? And two further utilities you may find helpful for working with Aliases.
This has minor improvements to work better with Big Sur, and now runs native on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
Nine more free apps available as Universal binaries, from Cirrus to xattred.
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.
Five different classes of metadata, from file system attributes to embedded Info.plist files, explained and explored.
The Eclectic Light Company 