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Plist

Plist (property list) is the serialization format of the Apple ecosystem, with XML and binary forms, used for macOS/iOS configuration.

Purpose

To provide the standard configuration and metadata serialization format for Apple platforms.

Mechanism

It supports a limited set of types: NSArray, NSDictionary, NSString, NSNumber, NSData, NSDate, and others. An XML plist uses the <dict><key>...</key><string>...</string></dict> structure. Binary plists are more compact, and plutil converts between forms.

Use cases

  • macOS preferences
  • iOS Info.plist
  • Xcode project configuration
  • Apple metadata

Examples

  • Input 
    <plist><dict><key>name</key><string>Ada</string></dict></plist>
    Output 
    {name:"Ada"}

    XML plist

Common errors

Binary plists cannot be edited with text tools
Convert to XML with plutil for editing

Related terms

XML
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is the W3C-standard markup language describing data with a tag tree, supporting namespaces, schema validation, and style transformation.
GLOSSARY
JSON
JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data interchange format based on JavaScript object literals, using key-value pairs and arrays.
GLOSSARY
YAML
YAML (YAML Ain't Markup Language) is a configuration-oriented data serialization format using indentation for hierarchy, supporting comments and references, and better suited to hand editing than JSON.
GLOSSARY

Related tools

Plist To Json
Plist To Json — pure client-side tool. Privacy-first, no server round-trip. Simplified demo implementation — basic text extraction, not a full plist parser (typed nodes such as integer/real are not preserved).
TOOL
Plist Parser
Extract key/value pairs from an Apple plist XML document. Only <key>…</key> followed by <string>…</string> is recognized — integer, boolean, date and data values are dropped from the result.
TOOL
Plist Stringify
Plist Stringify — pure client-side tool. Privacy-first, no server round-trip.
TOOL

References