Property lists

A property list, commonly referred to as a plist, is a structured data format used to store, organize, and access various data types of data on an iOS device as well as a Mac OS X device. Plists are binary-formatted files and can be viewed using a Property List Editor, which is capable of reading or converting the binary format to ASCII.

Plist files may or may not have a .plist file extension. To access the data stored in these files, you need a tool that can read them. Some of the good free tools include:

• Plist Editor for Windows, which can be downloaded from http://www.icopybot.com/plist-editor.htm

• The plutil command-line utility on Mac OS X

You can also view the plist files using XCode. Mac OS X includes the plutil command-line utility by default. The command-line utility can easily convert the binary formatted files into human readable files.

The following example displays the Safari browser History.plist file:

$sudo plutil -convert xml1 History.plist -o -
<?xml version...