How do I remove the extended attributes on a file in Mac OS X

Question

I have an AppleScript script that runs a stress test  Part of the test is to open  save  and close certain files  Somehow  the files have picked up some  extended attributes  that prohibit the files from being saved  That causes the stress test to fail   How do I remove the extended attributes

User · Answer

Use the xattr command  You can inspect the extended attributes     xattr s 7z com apple metadata kMDItemWhereFroms com apple quarantine   and use the -d option to delete one extended attribute     xattr -d com apple quarantine s 7z   xattr s 7z com apple metadata kMDItemWhereFroms   you can also use the -c option to remove all extended attributes     xattr -c s 7z   xattr s 7z   xattr -h will show you the command line options  and xattr has a man page

User · Answer

Answer  Individual Files     1  Showcase keys to use in selection   xattr   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png       com apple FinderInfo       com apple lastuseddate PS       com apple metadata kMDItemIsScreenCapture       com apple metadata kMDItemScreenCaptureGlobalRect       com apple metadata kMDItemScreenCaptureType   2  Pick a Key to delete   xattr -d com apple lastuseddate PS   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png xattr -d kMDItemIsScreenCapture   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png   3  Showcase keys again to see they have been removed   xattr -l   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png       com apple FinderInfo       com apple metadata kMDItemScreenCaptureGlobalRect       com apple metadata kMDItemScreenCaptureType   4  Lastly  REMOVE ALL keys for a particular file  xattr -c   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png     Answer  All Files In A Directory     1  Showcase keys to use in selection   xattr -r   Desktop   2  Remove a Specific Key for EVERY FILE in a directory  xattr -rd com apple FinderInfo   Desktop   3  Remove ALL keys on EVERY FILE in a directory  xattr -rc   Desktop      WARN  Once you delete these you DON T get them back    FAULT ERROR  There is NO UNDO      Errors    I wanted to address the error s people are getting  Because the errors drove me nuts too    On a mac if you install xattr in python  then your environment may have an issue      There are two different paths on my mac for xattr   type -a xattr        xattr is  usr local bin xattr      PYTHON Installed Version       xattr is  usr bin xattr            Mac OSX Installed Version   So in one of the example s where -c will not work in xargs is because in bash you default to the non-python version   Works with -c   usr bin xattr -c   Does NOT Work with -c   usr local bin xattr -c       option -c not recognized   My Shell Terminal defaults to   usr local bin xattr because my  PATH  usr local bin  is before  usr bin  which I believe is the default   I can prove this because  if you try to uninstall the python xattr you will see   pip3 uninstall xattr Uninstalling xattr-0 9 6    Would remove       usr local bin xattr      usr local lib python3 7 site-packages xattr-0 9 6 dist-info        usr local lib python3 7 site-packages xattr   Proceed  y n       Workarounds    To Fix option -c not recognized Errors    Uninstall any Python xattr you may have  pip3 uninstall xattr Close all Terminal windows  amp  quit Terminal Reopen a new Terminal window  ReRun xattr command and it should now work    OR     If you want to keep the Python xattr then use    usr bin xattr   for any Shell commands in Terminal    Example     Python s version of xattr doesn t handle images at all   Good-Mac   JayRizzo  xattr   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png       com apple FinderInfo       Traceback  most recent call last           File   usr local bin xattr   line 8  in  lt module gt            sys exit main            File   usr local lib python3 7 site-packages xattr tool py   line 196  in main           attr value   attr value decode  utf-8         UnicodeDecodeError   utf-8  codec can t decode byte 0xb0 in position 2  invalid start byte  Good-Mac   JayRizzo   usr bin xattr   Desktop screenshot  2019-10-23  at  010212 png       com apple FinderInfo       com apple lastuseddate PS       com apple metadata kMDItemIsScreenCapture       com apple metadata kMDItemScreenCaptureGlobalRect       com apple metadata kMDItemScreenCaptureType   Man Pages  MAN PAGE for OSX xattr  MAN PAGE for Python xattr VERSION 0 6 4     NOTE  I could not find the python help page for current VERSION 0 9 6   Thanks for Reading

User · Answer

Removing a Single Attribute on a Single File  See Bavarious s answer     To Remove All Extended Attributes On a Single File  Use xattr with the -c flag to  clear  the attributes   xattr -c yourfile txt      To Remove All Extended Attributes On Many Files  To recursively remove extended attributes on all files in a directory  combine the -c  clear  flag with the -r recursive flag   xattr -rc  path to directory       A Tip for Mac OS X Users  Have a long path with spaces or special characters   Open Terminal app and start typing xattr -rc  include a trailing space  and then then drag the file or folder to the Terminal app window and it will automatically add the full path with proper escaping

User · Answer

Try using   xattr -rd com apple quarantine directoryname   This takes care of recursively removing the pesky attribute everywhere

User · Answer

Another recursive approach     change directory to target folder  cd  Volumes path to folder    find all things of type  f   file      then pipe     each result as an argument  xargs -0     to the  xattr -c  command  find   -type f -print0   xargs -0 xattr -c    Sometimes you may have to use a star   instead of the dot    The dot just means  here   whereever your cd d to find   -type f -print0   xargs -0 xattr -c

[macos] How do I remove the "extended attributes" on a file in Mac OS X?

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