MacBinarycapable

MacBinarycapable is a designation used in some file systems and archival tools to indicate that a particular file can be encoded in the MacBinary format. MacBinary is a legacy encoding used on classic and early Mac systems to consolidate a file's data fork, resource fork, and Finder metadata into a single binary file, enabling transfer over channels that do not preserve Macintosh metadata. The MacBinarycapable flag is not part of the MacBinary specification itself; rather, it is an annotation used by certain software components to signal compatibility with MacBinary encoding during operations such as archiving, transfer, or restoration.

In practice, MacBinarycapable is encountered in contexts such as archive creation, FTP or network transfers, or backup tools that aim to preserve Mac-specific information when crossing non-Mac environments. A file marked as MacBinarycapable may be wrapped in a MacBinary-encoded container when copied or archived, to retain data and resource forks and Finder attributes, whereas a file not marked MacBinarycapable may be treated as plain binary and lose Macintosh-specific metadata.

The concept highlights the broader need for preserving Mac metadata in cross-platform workflows, alongside related mechanisms like AppleDouble or extended attributes. While MacBinary itself has largely fallen out of common use, MacBinarycapable appears in some legacy or specialized tooling to indicate compatibility with that encoding scheme.