macos - How do I remove the "extended attributes" on a file in Mac OS X?

Question

I have an AppleScript script that runs a stress test. Part of the test is to open, save, and close certain files. Somehow, the files have picked up some "extended attributes" that prohibit the files from being saved. That causes the stress test to fail.

How do I remove the extended attributes?

Answer 1

Use the xattr command. You can inspect the extended attributes:

$ xattr s.7z
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms
com.apple.quarantine

and use the -d option to delete one extended attribute:

$ xattr -d com.apple.quarantine s.7z
$ xattr s.7z
com.apple.metadata:kMDItemWhereFroms

you can also use the -c option to remove all extended attributes:

$ xattr -c s.7z
$ xattr s.7z

xattr -h will show you the command line options, and xattr has a man page.