Plister

A utility for programmatically setting OS X plist file preferences

Most dotfile setups have a string of cryptic defaults write com.apple...-type commands. Plister simplifies that process by allowing you to store your OS X preferences in a single YAML file (likely in your home directory or within your dotfiles repostiory), and exposes a single plister command line tool to set your saved preferences.

See @benbalter's dotfiles for an example.

1. Install the Gem (gem install plister)
2. Create a preference file as ~/.osx.yml (see below)
3. Run plister command to set the desired preferences

$ plister [path-to-your-preferences.yml] [options]

If no preference file is passed, Plister will default to ~/.osx.yml.

1. Create a file in your home directory called .osx.yml (or symlink it from elsewhere) .
2. Add your OS X preferences to the .osx.yml file, following the instructions below.

To dump all your existing preferences, run plister [path-to-your-preferences.yml] --dump. This will output all your existing preferences as a YAML file at the specified path, defaulting to ~/.osx.yml if none is given. You can also pass the --stdout flag to dump preferences to STDOUT.

OS X has several different ways of storing preferences, each with their own domain (e.g., com.apple.safari). If you're copying your preferences from a tutorial or someone else's dotfiles, you can tell the domain and type by the command used to set it.

defaults write -someFlag com.apple.safari key value
COMMAND        FLAG      DOMAIN           SETTING

User preferences are specific to a user and live in ~/Library/Preferences. They are the default and have no flag. Example: defaults write com.apple.safari someSetting -int 0.

System preferences are system wide and live in /Library/Preferenences. These are often passed as absolute paths, and require sudo. Example: sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.safari.plist someSetting -int 0.

Global preferences are not application specific and have a domain of NSGlobalDomain. This may be omitted in favor of the -g or -globalDomain flag. Global preference can be either user or system preferences and should be stored with a key of .GlobalPreferences in your config file. Example: defaults write NSGlobalDomain someSetting -int 0.

Host preferences live in ~/Library/Preferences/byHost and are identified by the -currentHost flag. Example: defaults write -currentHost com.apple.safari someSetting -int 0.

Settings are group by type and domain within your .osx.yml file.

user:
  com.apple.safari:
    someSetting: 0
    anotherSetting: my-value

  com.apple.dock:
    autohide: true

  # NSGlobalDomain preferences
  .GlobalPreferences:
    WebKitDeveloperExtras: true

system:
  com.apple.SoftwareUpdate:
    AutomaticCheckEnabled: true

host:
  com.apple.ScreenSaver.iLifeSlideShows:
    styleKey: VintagePrints

The above would be equivalent to:

defaults write com.apple.safari someSetting -int 0
defaults write com.apple.safari anotherSetting my-value
defaults write com.apple.dock autohide -bool true
defaults write NSGlobalDomain WebKitDeveloperExtras -bool true
sudo defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate AutomaticCheckEnabled -bool true
default write -currentHost com.apple.ScreenSaver.iLifeSlideShows styleKey VintagePrints

If you get an error that looks like:

/Library/Preferences/[DOMAIN].plist is not writable by [USER] (IOError)

You'll need to preface the plister command with sudo so that Ruby can write the system-wide preference.