Purpose and use

This program finds and updates Text Clipping and Web internet location (webloc) files so that, when copied to a system that does not preserve resource forks (e.g. git), the text or url in the files won't be lost.

You run this program once over your entire home folder or other folders where you store your own files, and let it update all the relevant files. Now, whenever you store these files in git or upload them to a file server, their data is not lost. And when you restore such files from git, you'd run this program once again over them to restore their lost resource forks (which is still needed to make Quick Look work with Text Clippings).

The program may also list other types of files that have their content stored only in the resource fork, and thus might lose their content if transferring to a system that does not preserve resource forks. Such file types include the hidden "Icon" files (which don't contain critical information), for instance. This program lists these items so that you are made aware of the potential data loss of them, but it can't fix them.

More information

Read more about resource forks and data forks in this Wikipedia article.

The Text Clipping and webloc files that need updating (i.e. with their data present only in the resource fork) are only encountered when created with fairly outdated macOS and OSX versions (for Text Clippings before macOS 10.12, for weblocs even long before that). If you've been using a Mac only for a few years now, you may not even have any files that need updating.

Recent macOS versions put the text and url data also into the data fork, where they are preserved even if the resource fork isn't.

So, this program simply finds the files that do not yet have their data also in the data fork, and adds it.

There remains one caveat: If a Text Clipping's resource fork is missing, then the "Quick Look" function won't be able to show the clipping file's content, whereas opening (i.e. double clicking) the file will show the content. To make QuickLook work again with such files, the resource fork has to be recreated from the data fork contents. This program can do that as well, i.e. if it finds a Text Clipping with a missing resource fork, it restores it so that it's complete again, with the same data in both the data and the resource fork.

Disclaimer

You may use the program free of charge. Services that distribute software may not charge for access to this program, and are required to link to the source of the program (e.g. to apps.tempel.org) even if they deliver a locally hosted copy of it.

No warranty is given. Care has been taken to prevent accidental data loss, but it's always prudent to have a backup, e.g. made with Time Machine, of all your computer files before trying out any new software.

Written and © 18 Jan 2022 by Thomas Tempelmann

http://apps.tempel.org