MacOS – Where does Messages.app store its “Play sound effects” setting

defaultsmacosmessagesplistsettings

I'm trying to write a script to configure the system and various apps to my liking, mostly via defaults write. I got stuck with Messages' Play sound effects setting (under General). I think this setting might be new in Mavericks.

I couldn't find it in any of the *iChat*.plist files under ~/Library/Preferences, so I watched the whole directory for changes with FS events, and it doesn't seem like that setting is affecting any of the files in that directory.

Any ideas about other locations where Messages.app could be storing this setting?

Best Answer

Since Messages.app is a sandboxed app, the preferences would be under ~/Library/Containers/:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iChat.plist

or look through ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.*iChat*/.

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It is in the root directory of the actual backup e.g. /Volumes/Back3/Backups.backupdb/flat/Latest/.exclusions.plist for a machine called flat but that only shows what happened.

More usefully - if you want to edit things see /Library/Preferences/com.apple.TimeMachine.plist

I got the informatiuon from this blog

MacOS – Where does Mountain Lion’s Calendar.app store its preferences

After performing an extensive search of my user directory I have found file associated with the Calendar.app, if you check the Info.plist contained within in the Calendar.app bundle you will find that the identifier for the Calendar app is still iCal and the file you are looking for is like "com.apple.iCal"

The files I found using the following search is:

$ find /Users/yourusername/ -name com.apple.iCal*

Files found:

/Users/yourusername/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Local/clientdata/com.apple.iCal
/Users/yourusername/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpd/Generated/com.apple.iCal.help
/Users/yourusername/Library/Caches/com.apple.helpd/SDMHelpData/AppleExtra/English/HelpSDMIndexFile/com.apple.iCal.help
/Users/yourusername/Library/Caches/com.apple.iCal
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.iCal.helper.E4000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.plist
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.iCal.helper.E4000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.plist.lockfile
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.helper.plist
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.helper.plist.lockfile
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist
/Users/yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iCal.plist.lockfile
/Users/yourusername/Library/Saved Application State/com.apple.iCal.savedState/

Additionally I am Fairly certain that iCal in Mountain Lion is using iCloud to store app preferences, or at least it should be since its suppose to be a cloud heavy app to span the iOS and OS X device boundary. I Will have to check into this further, and see how it works when iCloud is enabled or not...

It should be using iCloud as noted in developer docs topic of Designing for Key-Value Data in iCloud

To store discrete values in iCloud for app preferences, app configuration, or app state, use iCloud key-value storage.

Best Answer

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