Waymark / Routes / developer.apple.com Manipulate nested plist structures (arrays and dictionaries) from shell scripts using PlistBuddy
domain: developer.apple.com · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
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Steps PlistBuddy lives at /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy; run commands with the -c flag: /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print' /path/to/file.plist Read a nested key using colon-delimited paths: /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Print :MyDict:MyKey' file.plist Add a new string value: /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add :NewKey string "hello"' file.plist Append an item to an array using the colon-suffix notation: /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Add :MyArray: string "newitem"' file.plist Chain multiple -c flags in one invocation for atomic multi-key edits: /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'Set :Version 2' -c 'Set :BuildDate "2026-06-12"' file.plist Known gotchas Array indices in PlistBuddy paths are zero-based integers; :MyArray:0 refers to the first element. PlistBuddy writes changes immediately to disk; there is no dry-run mode, so back up plist files before running destructive edits in scripts. Using Add on a key that already exists returns an error; use Set for existing keys and Add only for new ones.
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