MacPrefer is a binary tool written to ease the management preferences on macOS, and is primarily intended for people administering multiple macOS systems. It can be easily used from a tool such as Jamf Pro or Puppet to make a few specific tasks involving user preferences a little less difficult.
This tool has two dependencies: Duti and DockUtil.
The menu command can manipulate a user's menubar settings.
This command will add a menu to a user's menubar, and works with any of the .menu bundles located in
/System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras
For example, both VPN and Volume work well.
| Flags | Purpose |
|---|---|
| user | The user to add the menu for. This defaults to the current console user. |
The dock commands can dump a user's current dock to a YAML or JSON file as well as set a user's dock from a YAML or JSON file. To give credit where credit is due, most of the heavy lifting is done by DockUtil. The only functionality added here is the ability to use a YAML or JSON configuration file for import and export.
When specifying dock items, convenience entries can be used to indicate system applications or Adobe Creative Cloud applications.
This command will dump a dock to a config file, and is typically used to back up the current user's dock for later restoration.
| Flags | Purpose |
|---|---|
| in | The path to the plist file to dump. Not typically needed, as it defaults to the current user's dock. |
| out | The path to the YAML or JSON file to output to. Not typically needed, as it defaults to /Users/XXX/Library/Prefer/dock.yml |
| user | The user to process the dock for. This defaults to the current user, which makes it important to include this flag when running this tool as root. |
This command will import a properly formatted YAML or JSON file as the given user's dock, removing all existing dock entries.
| Flags | Purpose |
|---|---|
| in | The path to the config file to import. |
| out | The path to save the config file to, after import. Defaults to /Users/XXX/Library/Prefer/dock.yml |
The format of the configuration is an array, with each primary key being separated by a spacer in the dock. Elements within the primary keys are entries in the dock. Each element is either an application's name, an absolute path to an application, or an array describing a link to another resource. An example in YAML is below:
group1: - Messages - Postbox group2: - Safari - Firefox - 'Google Chrome' - 'Microsoft Edge' group5: - Hyper - { link: /Applications/Custom.terminal } - screen_sharing group6: - { link: /Applications/, section: others, display: folder, view: grid, sort: name } When processing application names, the following locations are checked for the application:
- /Applications
- /Users/XXX/Applications
When processing links, the following keys and values can be used:
| Key | Possible Values |
|---|---|
| link | A typical link with a scheme (IE - file://) |
| section | apps, others |
| display | stack, folder |
| view | grid, fan, list, auto |
| sort | name, dateadded, datemodified, datecreated, kind |
The Adobe commands can provide information about installed Adobe Creative Cloud applications, as well as backup and transfer preferences between different years of the same Creative Cloud application.
For all of these commands, the application name should be provided in lowercase, using a dash as a separator, for example: after-effects.
Provides information about an installed Adobe Creative Cloud application, output in JSON format. This information includes:
- Version installed
- Path to application
- SAP code
- Base version
- Uninstaller command string
- Paths to known preferences
The year is optional for the applications that do not use it, such as XD, Dimension, and Lightroom.
Backs up the preferences of an Adobe Creative Cloud application. While the application does not need to be installed, it can be helpful. Preferences are backed up to the path below, and stored in time/date stamped zip files.
/Users/<user>/Library/Preferences/Prefer/CC/<app>/<year>
The year is optional for the applications that do not use it, such as XD, Dimension, and Lightroom.
Copies preferences from one year of a Creative Cloud application to another year. This is intended for situations in which more than one year of an application are installed side-by-side, such as both Photoshop 2020 and 2021.
It should be noted that this is purely a "copy" process; no changes are made to the files, and no attempt is made to migrate changed or deprecated preferences. This has worked well in testing, but may not work with all future preferences or applications. As such, a backup of the existing preferences is always made during the copy process.
| Flags | Purpose |
|---|---|
| from | The source year, IE - 2019 |
| to | The destination year, IE - 2020 |
| user | This defaults to the current user, which makes it important to include this flag when running this tool as root. |
A command is included that can set the default application for a very limited number of file extensions, in cases where more than one application might be used to open a type of file such as a PDF or text file.
The majority of the heavy lifting is done by Duti. The main functions that are added here is the ability to work with an extension, rather than a Uniform Type Identifier as well as importing defaults from a JSON or YAML configuration file.
This command can set the default application to use for one specific extension, or can load defaults from a JSON or YAML file.
| Flags | Purpose |
|---|---|
| in | A YAML or JSON file from which to set default apps for various extensions. |
| out | The file in which to save default applications for various extensions. Used when setting a default for a single extension. Defaults to /Users/XXX/Library/Preferences/Prefer/apps.yml |
| extension | An extension for which to set the default application. |
| app | Path to the application to use when opening the given extension. Convenience shortcuts can be used for system apps and the latest Adobe applications. |
| user | This defaults to the current user, which makes it important to include this flag when running this tool as root. |
The list of working extensions can be found in DefaultApplicationCommand.php. Additional extensions may be added in the future, but as you can see it's a bit of a task to write a Uniform Type Identifier to extension map.
In the defaults:app and dock:import commands, the following convenience shortcuts can be used.
Any application included with macOS located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/ can be described in the configuration file with a lowercase, underscore separated string such as dvd_player or screen_sharing.
Any Adobe Creative Cloud application can be described in the configuration file with a lowercase, underscore separated string such as after_effects or photoshop. The most recent version of the application will be used.
Additionally, the shortcut acrobat can be specified, in which case the following apps would be utilized, in order of preference:
- Adobe Acrobat DC
- Acrobat Pro (older)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader DC
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (older)