MacBinary

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File Format
Name MacBinary
Ontology
Extension(s) .bin
MIME Type(s) application/macbinary, application/x-macbinary
PRONOM fmt/1761, fmt/1762, fmt/1763
Wikidata ID Q1882400
Released 1985

MacBinary is a format for encoding Macintosh files for transmission including directory metadata and both the data and resource forks, so that all system-specific aspects of the file can be reconstituted at the other end of the transmission. It is similar in concept to the Binary II format for the Apple II. Some other archiving and transfer programs had support for MacBinary built in, including a version of BinHex which uses this encoding (though there are other BinHex versions that have their own manner of including resource fork data).

Several different versions of this format have been released to accommodate changes in the Mac filesystem. (There was a MacBinary II, MacBinary III, and a proposed but little-used MacBinary II+.) Since the release of OS X, different archivers have been used and MacBinary has gone out of common use.

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