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?
xattred
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.
The equivalent of cmp, only it works on extended attributes rather than file data.
Some documents can’t be opened with apps which should be able to edit them. These tools address problems with their metadata.
Fixes a minor bug, and now runs on all Macs, Intel and Apple Silicon, including Big Sur betas.
Nine more free apps available as Universal binaries, from Cirrus to xattred.
Supporting 16 different types of metadata, from Authors to Version, you don’t need to know how they are stored, etc.
Five different classes of metadata, from file system attributes to embedded Info.plist files, explained and explored.
If grouping apps by Application Categories won’t help you find them, here’s a method using metadata which you can customise.
