A macOS command line tool to reveal a file’s UTI

Latest Release: 1.1.0

 New Version

How to Use utitool

utitool is a macOS command line tool to help you discover files’ Uniform Type Identifiers (UTIs). macOS uses these to match data files to applications that can edit or view them. For example, PreviewMarkdown works with a number of UTIs, such as net.daringfireball.markdown and net.ia.markdown to provide previews of markdown files.

In Terminal, run:

utitool [file path 1] [file path 2] ... [file path n]

Use the --more (or -m) switch for more details:

Examples

Get data for all the files in the working directory:

$ utitool *

Get data for a named file in the working directory:

$ utitool text.md

Get data for named files in the working directory:

$ utitool text1.md text2.md

Get data for any named file:

$ utitool /User/me/text1.md

Get data for a named file in the parent directory:

$ utitool ../text1.md

Get extra data for a named file in the parent directory:

$ utitool ../text1.md --more

Get UTI information for a particular file extension:

$ utitool --extension nii

Get extra data for a particular UTI:

$ utitool --uti com.bps.rust-source

Back to the Top

Source Code

You can view Utitool’s source code at GitHub.

Back to the Top

Release Notes

• 1.1.0 1 August 2025
  • Add extra file information when viewing a file’s UTI.
  • Add --extension option to show info about specified a file extension.
  • Add --uti option to show info about a specified UTI.
  • Add --more option to show extra UTI information about specified files.
• 1.0.4 23 July 2021
  • Add async signal safe ctrl-c trapping code.
• 1.0.3 15 June 2021
  • Add support for macOS 11 Big Sur’s UTType API.
• 1.0.2 8 February 2021
  • Minor help text change.
• 1.0.1 4 February 2021
  • Tiny bit of refactoring.
• 1.0.0 12 January 2021
  • Initial public release.

Back to the Top

Related Software

• Depot
• imageprep
• pdfmaker
• word2text
• Hex

Back to the Top