What is a Plist?

What is a Plist?

Essentially, it's a preference file.

What is in the Plist folder?

Preferences for software used on that Mac OS X user account.

What do I lose if I move it to desktop or trash it?

That depends on the application or other item that uses it.

Or does it reconstruct itself?

A file with the default settings will be created if needed.

(40118)

Hi again asnet,

A .plist is a "preference" file for the Application that it holds the preference settings for. By trashing and then relaunching an application you are getting rid of old user set preferences that may have become corrupt. This is often used to correct problems that a user may be having with an application.

Remember by doing this with a .plist file that you will need to relaunch the application and reset your user set preferences for that particular application. Never delete a .plist before reopening the application and seeing if it has corrected your problem. First drag the old .plist to the trash, or better, to the desktop. This will allow you to return it if there are any problems and will allow you to return to the previous state (if this is the case, trash the newly created one and replace the old one). If all is well you can trash the old one when you have made certain all is well with the affected application.

Trashing .plist files will recreate default preferences for the application but not restore any user information that was stored with the previous .plist. For example, I believe when you trash the .plist for an application such as Mail, you would have to set up all your mail settings again and you may lose your previous stored emails so you want to be careful when deleting .plists. It would be like starting Mail.app for the first time.

Always be careful when trashing files if you are uncertain.

littleshoulders 🙂

edit: I see Niel is a faster typer than I 😉

Message was edited by: littleshoulders

Hi again asnet,

Yikes! .......... take your time LS. Take your time.

I have been away Doing Things.
Back now.

Long time no see 😉

Hard to find Discussions now.

Is it being phased out?

No, on the contrary, they are becoming larger and larger with the introduction of all the new products Apple has been releasing lately. There was a recent change to the navigation to the Discussions main page (personally, I think it's more difficult to navigate to in it's recent incarnation, also). Years ago, the Discussions were linked to directly from the top tab bar once on Apple's site. It, unfortunately, is now relegated in importance and no longer has it's own navigation tab in the top tabs 😟

Glad you're back and your very welcome for the help,

LS 🙂

asnet wrote:
Hard to find Discussions now.
Is it being phased out?

We know what you mean. The links into the Discussions pages from the main Apple page / Support page are very hard to find. They've called it "Communities" on the main support page.