FG

what is the @ after the permissions for in ls -l on a mac?

Freshabout 19 hours ago
Mar 15, 20268872 views
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Problem

Possible Duplicate: ls -la symbolics… what does that last symbol mean? Consider the following output from ls -l on OS X 10.5.8 Can anybody tell me what the @ represents at the end of the permissions section, and also how to disable/enable it. I guess this this has something to do with the directory…

Error Output

drwxr-xr-x   3 user  staff    102 Aug 26 20:21 downloads
drwxrwxrwx@ 10 user  staff    340 Aug 26 20:12 images

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1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Understanding and Managing Extended Attributes in macOS

Medium Risk

The '@' symbol in the output of 'ls -l' indicates that the file or directory has extended attributes associated with it. Extended attributes are metadata that can provide additional information about a file, such as security settings or custom attributes. In macOS, these attributes can be managed using the 'xattr' command.

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  1. 1

    Check for Extended Attributes

    Use the 'xattr' command to list the extended attributes of the directory or file in question. This will help you understand what attributes are present.

    bash
    xattr -l images
  2. 2

    Remove Extended Attributes

    If you want to remove the extended attributes, you can use the 'xattr -d' command followed by the attribute name. To remove all extended attributes, use 'xattr -c'.

    bash
    xattr -c images
  3. 3

    Add Extended Attributes

    To add a new extended attribute, use the 'xattr -w' command followed by the attribute name and value. This can be useful for setting custom metadata.

    bash
    xattr -w com.example.customAttribute 'value' images
  4. 4

    Verify Changes

    After making changes to the extended attributes, use the 'ls -l' command again to check if the '@' symbol is still present. If it is not, the attributes have been successfully removed.

    bash
    ls -l images

Validation

Run 'ls -l' on the modified directory or file again to confirm that the '@' symbol is no longer present, indicating that there are no extended attributes.

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Environment