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hfs: copy files to and from HFS volumes on OS X

This program copies files between HFS and HFS+/APFS filesystems on OS X, including resource forks. It is particularly helpful for transferring files to an old Macintosh when the necessary unarchivers/decoders for formats like Stuffit, MacBinary, Disk Copy 4.2, etc are not present on the target machine. It can also convert text files in both directions.

The heavy lifting is done by Robert Leslie's libhfs, which is included in the libhfs directory.

Why use this instead of hfsutils?

hfsutils can't read and write actual resource forks on the non-HFS side, even when the filesystem supports them. The best it can do is MacBinary and BinHex encoding.

The hfsutils CLI is a bit idiosyncratic. I think its design makes more sense for doing ongoing work with a set of multiple HFS volumes than for the quick one-off transfer tasks I need to do.

Why use hfsutils instead of this?

hfsutils provides a much more complete set of file operations. Also, because it has BinHex and MacBinary support, it can transfer any file to or from any filesystem.

Building

You'll need Xcode. Version 14.2 on Monterey is known to work.

First, cd to libhfs and run make. Then open hfs.xcodeproj in Xcode and build it (cmd-b or Product->Build). To find the resulting hfs binary, select Product->Show Build Folder in Finder.

Usage

To list files: hfs [hfs-path].

To copy a file out of the HFS volume: hfs get hfs-path local-path [--text]

To copy a file into the HFS volume: put local-path hfs-path type creator [--text | --type type:creator]

HFS paths use a colon (:) as the directory separator and are considered to be absolute regardless of whether or not they have a leading colon. The volume name should not be included in the path.

If the --text flag is used, the get and put commands will convert the contents of the data fork between Unicode and Mac OS Roman and between Unix and Macintosh line endings.

Support, or lack thereof

This software is a home-cooked meal. I made it for me. If you find it useful, that's a happy side effect. I'm making it available with absolutely no warranty whatsoever and no promise of support, bug fixes, or future development of any kind. Use it at your own risk. You should make sure you have a backup copy of any volume you use this software on.

Planned improvements

  • Replace the CLI with a GUI

Known limitations

  • File paths and text file contents on HFS volumes are assumed to be in the Mac OS Roman encoding. Other encodings are not supported.
  • File paths and text file contents on the local (non-HFS) side are assumed to be in UTF-8. Other encodings are not supported.
  • File paths containing the null character are not supported.
  • OSes other than OS X are not supported. Windows users can use CiderPress. Users of Linux/BSD/other Unix systems can use hfsutils.