Can I delete any of the plist files?

A plist file is a property list file, not a preference list.

To the OP:

The ones which are safe to delete are the ones located in your home library (Users/youusername/library , or for short, ~/Library). The ones located in the system and root libraries should not be deleted indiscriminently (not to say the ones in your user library should be, but it is safe to do so, if you are having an issue).

Message was edited by: nbar

Preference files used by applications. You can delete most of them, but I would not unless you know it is safe to do so. In particular, avoid deleting preference files found in the Library or System folders at the root of your hard drive. Stick to what you find in the /Home/Library/ folder.

Just to add, not all plist files are preference files. Some of them may be preference files. The .plist extension means property list, not preference list, and you will find property list files in various places which are absolutely essential to the functioning of the system.

They are the extension used by preference files. They are also used as control files for system processes called Launch Daemons or Launch Agents. Still you can technically call them preference files of a special sort.

A plist file is a property list file, not a preference list.

Any reason why this needed to be repeated? You didn't see my post perhaps? And this shouldn't have been addressed to Kappy, who is well aware of this distinction.

nbar wrote:

The ones which are safe to delete are the ones located in your home library (Users/youusername/library , or for short, ~/Library).

There are exceptions in that folder; not all are inconsequential, for e.g

~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

is one to keep because it contains one's Mail account setup. To add to this, if anyone wants to reproduce their Mail account on a new system, after copying over the mailboxes, copying the above mail.plist will automatically have your new mail account setup with the right settings.

I have the utmost respect for Kappy, he built these forums.

I didn't see your post by the time I posted. Apologies.

Yeah, I thought it could be that and gave you the benefit of the doubt. Posts have been arriving in snail's time.

Those property lists exist in:

~/Library/Mail/V2/MailData/

The property list you specify doesn't exist in that path, atleast, in my configuration.

There must be difference in OS versions. My reference to Mail's plist refers to 10.6. It seems they have relocated it in Mail's folder for your later version.