get-alternate-data-streams-in-macos.md

Get Alternate Data Streams In macOS

Windows files can contain Alternate Data Streams (ADS). There are ways view the ADS information in Windows see the Zone Identifier til. You can view the ADS in macOS or Linux by two methods.

View extended attributes using ls

When listing files use the -@ option to display extended attributes.

ls -l@

Use the xattr command

Use the xattr command with the -l option to see the ADS and its contents.

xattr -l <file_you_are_investigating.ext>

References

This blog post has a more detailed explaination of these two methods.