Mac OS X’s ‘QuarantineEvents’ keeps a log of all your downloads
http://www.tuaw.com/2012/02/14/mac-os-xs-quarantineevents-keeps-a-log-of-all-your-downloads/
via Byline
Mac OS X users are familiar with warnings like the one shown here. Apple’s
“quarantine” has been in place for awhile, and it offers some minimal
protection against accidentally opening files which have been downloaded
from the Internet.
What most Mac OS X users probably don’t know is that Mac OS X keeps a log
of all files downloaded. Files are added to that log *even* if you are
using “private” browsing in Safari or “incognito” in Google Chrome, and the
log does not appear to ever be cleared.
Even so, Don’t Panic:
there is no evidence that this information is shared with Apple or anyone
else. You do *not* need to be worried about Apple telling anyone that you
torrented all of the episodes of Downton
Abbey>.
The only one who has access to this information is anyone with access to
your account.
However, some folks still might find that disconcerting. If you’re one of
them, you can find the log at *
&;/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEventsV2* on Lion
or *&;/Library/Preferences/com.apple.LaunchServices.QuarantineEvents* on
Snow Leopard (where “&;” is the path to your home directory). If you
upgraded your Mac from Snow Leopard to Lion, you might have both files.
The information is stored in an SQLite 3.x database, which means that you
will need an SQLite editor to read the information (*you can open it in
TextEdit to get a general idea of what’s in there, but it’s not very easy
on the eyes. —Ed*). I have written a shell script
showdownloads.shwhich will dump
the information in an easy-to-read format (note: my script
excludes downloads from ‘PubSubAgent’ which I believe are just RSS feeds).
Personally, I find this to be really handy as way to find things that I
downloaded but can’t remember where I found them.
Thanks to Ben Barnett>for
bringing this to our attention.
Mac OS X’s ‘QuarantineEvents’ keeps a log of all your
downloads>originally
appeared on TUAW
- The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 14 Feb 2012
00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of
feeds>
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