Convert macOS/iOS Preferences Plist to JSON

UserDefaults Preferences Plist

macOS and iOS store user preferences using the UserDefaults system, which persists data as plist files in ~/Library/Preferences/. These files contain a mix of all plist types and are commonly exported for debugging or migration.

Plist Structure

<dict>
  <key>ShowSidebar</key>
  <true/>
  <key>FontSize</key>
  <real>14.5</real>
  <key>MaxRecentFiles</key>
  <integer>20</integer>
  <key>WindowFrame</key>
  <string>{{100, 200}, {800, 600}}</string>
  <key>LastOpened</key>
  <date>2025-12-15T09:30:00Z</date>
  <key>Theme</key>
  <string>dark</string>
  <key>Bookmarks</key>
  <array>
    <string>/Users/dev/Documents</string>
    <string>/Users/dev/Projects</string>
  </array>
</dict>

JSON Output

{
  "ShowSidebar": true,
  "FontSize": 14.5,
  "MaxRecentFiles": 20,
  "WindowFrame": "{{100, 200}, {800, 600}}",
  "LastOpened": "2025-12-15T09:30:00Z",
  "Theme": "dark",
  "Bookmarks": ["/Users/dev/Documents", "/Users/dev/Projects"]
}

Mixed Type Dictionary

Preferences plists are a great example of how a single <dict> can contain every plist type: booleans, reals, integers, strings, dates, and arrays. The tree view with type badges is particularly useful here to verify the type of each preference.

WindowFrame Pattern

macOS apps store window positions as NSStringFromRect output: "{{x, y}, {w, h}}". This is a string value, not a nested structure. The converter correctly preserves it as a JSON string.

Reading Preferences on macOS

You can export any app's preferences using: defaults export com.example.myapp - | pbcopy and then paste the result into this converter.