bpylist2
Parse and generate NSKeyedArchiver archives
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need to work with Apple's binary plist or NSKeyedArchiver formats. The package is lightweight, dependency-free, and permissively licensed. The aging maintenance is a minor concern—it does not affect basic functionality for standard Cocoa classes, but verify compatibility if you rely on newer or less common archive features. No security vulnerabilities are known.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Requires Python 3.7 or later.
- For Python 3.6 and 3.7, a bundled copy of plistlib is used; Python 3.8+ uses the standard library version.
- Low friction install with no runtime dependencies.
License · maintenance · safety
MIT (permissive) — MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions; suitable for both open-source and proprietary projects.
last release 2023-09-11 (1068 days) · last repo commit 2025-05-19 · 22 stars
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 344,320 downloads/mo, #7,374 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
from bpylist2 import archiver
# Unarchive
with open('my_archived_object', 'rb') as f:
obj = archiver.unarchive(f.read())
# Archive
my_object = {'foo': 'bar', 'some_array': [1, 2, 3, 4]}
archived = archiver.archive(my_object)- Whether the aging maintenance status affects compatibility with recent macOS or iOS archive formats.
- Performance characteristics when handling large or deeply nested archives.
- Completeness of support for all NSKeyedArchiver-compatible Cocoa classes beyond the documented standard ones.
What it is and what it does
bpylist2 is a Python library for reading and writing Apple's binary plist format and NSKeyedArchiver archives—a proprietary serialization format used by Cocoa applications on macOS and iOS. It handles both plain binary plists and the more complex NSKeyedArchiver format, which encodes Cocoa objects like NSString, NSNumber, NSDate, NSArray, and NSDictionary. The library also supports custom Cocoa classes through Python class registration, allowing you to map archived objects to your own Python dataclasses or custom classes with encode/decode methods.
The package has no external runtime dependencies and installs cleanly. It supports Python 3.7 through 3.11, bundling a copy of the Python 3.8 plistlib for older versions. Maintenance is aging—the last release was over a year ago—but the repository remains active and not archived, and there are no known security vulnerabilities.
Use it for
- Extract data from macOS or iOS application archives or preference files for analysis or migration.
- Deserialize Cocoa objects saved by native applications into Python for processing or conversion.
- Build tools that need to read or modify NSKeyedArchiver-formatted data from Apple platforms.
- Reverse-engineer or inspect binary plist data structures from macOS system files or app bundles.
- Archive Python dictionaries and lists in a format compatible with Cocoa applications.
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need to work with Apple's binary plist or NSKeyedArchiver formats.
The package is lightweight, dependency-free, and permissively licensed. The aging maintenance is a minor concern—it does not affect basic functionality for standard Cocoa classes, but verify compatibility if you rely on newer or less common archive features. No security vulnerabilities are known.
Install
bpylist2 on PyPI
Before you install
Low friction install with no runtime dependencies. Maintenance is aging—last release was over a year ago and the repository has not received recent commits, though it remains active and not archived.
Requires Python 3.7 or later. For Python 3.6 and 3.7, a bundled copy of plistlib is used; Python 3.8+ uses the standard library version.
License in practice
MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions; suitable for both open-source and proprietary projects.
Quickstart
from bpylist2 import archiver
# Unarchive
with open('my_archived_object', 'rb') as f:
obj = archiver.unarchive(f.read())
# Archive
my_object = {'foo': 'bar', 'some_array': [1, 2, 3, 4]}
archived = archiver.archive(my_object)Verify before relying
- Whether the aging maintenance status affects compatibility with recent macOS or iOS archive formats.
- Performance characteristics when handling large or deeply nested archives.
- Completeness of support for all NSKeyedArchiver-compatible Cocoa classes beyond the documented standard ones.
Package facts
| License | MIT permissive |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.7,<4.0 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | None |
| Maintenance | Aging 1,068 days since the last release |
| Last repo commit | |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 344,320 / month, #7,374 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | License :: OSI Approved :: MIT LicenseProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.7Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9 |
Evidence: bpylist2-4.1.1-py3-none-any.whl
Tags
Let your AI agent find packages like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 14,416 PyPI packages by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “binary plist parser”
- bpylist2Reads and writes Apple's binary plist format and NSKeyedArchiver…
- opack2opack2 parses the opack binary format, a serialization format used in…
- openstep-parserParses Xcode project files (OpenStep format) directly in Python…
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat.
More Utilities packages
Converts domain names between Unicode and ASCII-compatible encoding (Punycode) according to IDNA 2008 and Unicode Technical Standard 46, with security validation and broader script coverage than the standard library.
Install it if you work with internationalized domain names, need to validate domains, or use HTTP clients that depend on it transitively.
Detects and normalizes text encoding from unknown or ambiguous sources, supporting all IANA character sets that Python's core library provides codecs for, with the ability to register custom codecs.
Setuptools is a Python build backend and package management tool that handles building, distributing, and installing Python packages, including support for C/C++ extension modules.
Pluggy provides a plugin system that lets you define hook specifications and register implementations to be called in sequence, enabling extensible Python applications without tight coupling.
Install it if you're building an extensible application or framework.
Pygments is a syntax highlighter that colorizes source code and text in over 500 languages and formats, outputting to HTML, LaTeX, RTF, SVG, images, or ANSI terminal sequences.
Install it if you need to display or transform source code.
Six provides utility functions to write Python code that runs on both Python 2.7 and Python 3.3+, smoothing over language differences between the two versions.
See also opack2 · openstep-parser · pyobjc-framework-DeviceDiscoveryExtension · pyobjc-framework-MediaExtension · pyiosbackup · pyobjc-framework-FinderSync · pyobjc-framework-MapKit · pyobjc-framework-DataDetection · pyobjc-framework-BackgroundAssets · pyobjc