MDSCHEMA(1) General Commands Manual MDSCHEMA(1)

mdschema — compile, query, and display information about a Spotlight metadata attribute schema

mdschema [-h] [-a] [-A attribute] [-t type] [-compile path] [-path path]

The mdschema utility is used to compile, query, and display information about a Spotlight metadata attribute schema. Spotlight uses a schema to define metadata attributes that can be associated with files and other searchable content. This tool allows compilation of a custom schema, along with inspection of the schema, including attribute definitions, display names, and content type associations.

The following options are available:

Display usage information and exit.
Display all metadata attributes defined in the schema. This shows a complete list of available attribute names that can be used with Spotlight queries and file metadata operations.
attribute
Display detailed information about a specific metadata attribute, including its type (string, number, date, boolean), whether it is multi-valued, display name, description, and other metadata properties. The attribute should be a valid metadata attribute name such as ‘kMDItemDisplayName’ or ‘com_apple_metadata_modtime’.
type
Display the metadata attributes associated with a specific Uniform Type Identifier (UTI). This shows which attributes are relevant for a particular content type, including display attributes, preview attributes, and read-only attributes. The type should be a valid UTI such as ‘public.jpeg’ or ‘com.apple.mail.email’.
path
Compile a custom metadata attribute schema cache and write it to the specified path. This option processes all available schema definition files and generates a schema database that can be used by Spotlight. This is useful for adding a custom metadata schema to an application resource bundle.
path
Write the output to the specified file path instead of stdout. This option can be used with other query options to save the schema information to a file.

Display all available metadata attributes:

mdschema -a

Get information about a specific attribute:

mdschema -A kMDItemDisplayName

Show attributes for JPEG images:

mdschema -t public.jpeg

Compile and build a metadata schema cache:

mdschema -compile /path/to/schema.xml -path /path/to/schema.mdplist

mdfind(1), mdimport(1), mdls(1), mdutil(1)

January 13, 2026 macOS 26