macOS Preferences Dump

dump-prefs.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -euf -o pipefail

dump_domains() {
    local prefix=$1
    local domain=$2
    local outputdir=$3

    echo "=== dump_domains: prefix='${prefix}', "\
        "domain='${domain}', outputdir='${outputdir}'"

    rm -rf "${outputdir}"
    mkdir -p "${outputdir}"

    # Beware: there are spaces in some domains!
    IFS=$'\n'
    local domains=( $(${prefix} defaults ${domain} domains | sed 's/, /\'$'\n/g') )
    unset IFS
    domains+=('NSGlobalDomain')
    echo "Found ${#domains[@]} domains (including global)"

    for dom in "${domains[@]}"; do
        ${prefix} defaults ${domain} read "${dom}" > "${outputdir}/${dom}" || true
    done
}

main() {
    echo "Auth with sudo for dumping system prefs:"
    sudo -v

    dump_domains "sudo" "" "system/default"
    dump_domains "sudo" "-currentHost" "system/currentHost"
    dump_domains "" "" "user/default"
    dump_domains "" "-currentHost" "user/currentHost"

    # sudo -k
    echo "Done!"
}

main