Alias (Mac OS)

Mac OS Alias
Type codealis
Uniform Type Identifier (UTI)com.apple.alias-file
Magic number'book\0\0\0\0mark\0\0\0\0'
Developed byApple, Inc.
Type of formatshortcut

In classic Mac OS System 7 and later, and in macOS, an alias is a small file that represents another object in a local, remote, or removable[1] file system and provides a dynamic link to it; the target object may be moved or renamed, and the alias will still link to it (unless the original file is recreated; such an alias is ambiguous and how it is resolved depends on the version of macOS). In Windows, a "shortcut", a file with a .lnk extension, performs a similar function.

It is similar to the Unix symbolic link, but with the distinction of working even if the target file moves to another location on the same disk (in this case it acts like a hard link, but the source and target of the link may be on different filesystems, and the target of the link may be a directory). As a descendant of BSD, macOS supports Unix symbolic (and hard) links as well.

  1. ^ "Chapter 4 - Alias Manager / About the Alias Manager - Search Strategies". Inside Macintosh: Files. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008.