Saving/loading just my custom action groups

[Erichwanh]

Mac OS 15.5, Mp3tag 1.9.13

I’m quite happy with the way MP3tag writes a .plist file:

@Florian

Exporting the settings and importing on another Mac (or the same) is possible via the defaults command in Terminal.app

My question is, is there a way to export/import only my custom action groups? I’m bouncing between plist files to make managing my File List + Tag Panel easier (no need to have every one of my options for every job). The only issue with that, is my action groups don’t carry over, so I have to manage/update my action groups for every plist I’m working with.

If not, I’d like to make a feature suggestion, however it’s not imperative.

Regardless, thank you kindly for your time 8^)

[Florian]

It took some time to make it work, but I think this is might serve as a workaround until exporting only action groups is possible from the UI:

defaults export app.mp3tag.Mp3tag - | plutil -extract ActionGroups xml1 -o Mp3tagActionGroups.plist -

This exports the action groups to the file name Mp3tagActionGroups.plist.

plutil -replace ActionGroups -xml "$(cat Mp3tagActionGroups.plist)" ~/Library/Containers/app.mp3tag.Mp3tag/Data/Library/Preferences/app.mp3tag.Mp3tag.plist

And this command replaces the existing value for the action groups with what has been exported before.

Hope this helps, and please make a full export before trying this. If the changes are not immediately visible, you can force a re-read via killall cfprefsd.

[Erichwanh]

Yeah, wow, that worked quite well, thank you very kindly 8^)

[Florian]

Your question inspired me to add support for exporting and importing action groups as JSON files, available with v1.10.

[Erichwanh]

Thank you kindly 8^) forgive me if it’s obvious, but how do I export it as a JSON instead of plist?

[Florian]

Yes, it’s a JSON export.

[Erichwanh]

So “defaults export app.mp3tag.Mp3tag - | plutil -extract ActionGroups xml1 -o Mp3tagActionGroups.plist -“ will now create a JSON file? Should I change the extension?

[Florian]

No, I’ve added the export to the menu on the lower left. No more command-line magic needed

[Erichwanh]

Ah! Found it. I didn’t know what “lower left” meant, and the update only states:

”This version adds support for exporting and importing action groups as JSON files.”

So I honestly had no idea where to look. I was looking all over General Settings.

Anyway, thank you once again kindly, and if there’s anyone in the future reading this, I found it here: