Extended attribute gets added to every new file

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Level 1

4 points

Extended attribute gets added to every new file

Hi,

Recently, every new file created gets the extended attribute 'com.apple.metadata._kMDItemUserTags' with the value 'bplist00....' (even plain text files created using editors such as Sublime, TextMate etc).

I'm a developer and spending a lot of time using the shell and has never seen this before.

It's kind of annoying to have this attribute added to every file such as source code and plain text documents. Right now I'm running xattr -c to remove the attribute from such files but would like to remove the behavior of automatically setting this attribute.

Have not found much information about this, which is why I'm asking here. It seems to be related to the tags feature in Finder (which I have never used). Any suggestions on how to remove this behavior?

Best regards

MacBook Pro with Retina display, macOS Sierra (10.12.5)

Posted on May 30, 2017 10:32 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,764 points

May 31, 2017 6:23 AM in response to anloo

Under no circumstances does my build 3126 of Sublime Text 3 on macOS Sierra 10.12.5 introduce the extended attribute bplist00... xattr detritus on any new or edited file. However...

Regardless if a file is tagged, and then that tag is removed by the Finder, the extended attribute com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags remains associated with that file. Think of it as a Finder scar. This is what ls -@l file, and xattr file show, and you depict with that hex bplist00.. entry.

You can continue to use the xattr -c flag to clear all extended attributes on the file, or the following to clear the specific tag junk that remains on the file:

xattr -d com.apple.metadata:_kMDItemUserTags file.ext

Are you using any third-party TextMate bundle, or Sublime package that may be adding this extended attribute to your documents without your knowledge?

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