Where are those defaults stored in OS X?

Question

I adjust my font aliasing setting by:

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 3

which is a hint from macworld.

I am wondering where are these defaults stored and how can I retrive the current values? Thanks~

Answer 1

The "global domain" preferences are stored in

/Users/yourname/Library/Preferences/ByHost/.GlobalPreferences.$UUID.plist, where $UUID is, well, a UUID, identifying your machine.

Answer 2

All preference files are stored in ~/Library/Preferences/ in .plist files named by reverse domain name, so for example com.Apple.iPhoto.plist or similar. The 'defaults' command is just a front-end for that.

Answer 3

You wrote a global value that wasn't there before.

to read it now:

defaults -currentHost read -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing

to change it

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int SIZE#

to set it back to normal

defaults -currentHost delete -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing

Further down in the post you referenced this is all referenced. More info on defaults can be found at apple's developer site.

http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/defaults.1.html