Key Summary

Table 1 contains an alphabetical listing of Core Foundation keys, the corresponding name for that key in the Xcode property list editor, a high-level description of each key, and the platforms on which you use it. Detailed information about each key is available in later sections.

CFAppleHelpAnchor

CFAppleHelpAnchor (String - macOS) identifies the name of the bundle’s initial HTML help file, minus the .html or .htm extension. This file must be located in the bundle’s localized resource directories or, if the help is not localized, directly under the Resources directory.

CFBundleAllowMixedLocalizations

CFBundleAllowMixedLocalizations (Boolean - iOS, macOS) specifies whether the bundle supports the retrieval of localized strings from frameworks. This key is used primarily by Foundation tools that link to other system frameworks and want to retrieve localized resources from those frameworks.

CFBundleDevelopmentRegion

CFBundleDevelopmentRegion (String - iOS, macOS) specifies the default language and region for the bundle, as a language ID. For example, English for Australia has the language ID en-AU. The system uses this value if it cannot locate a resource for the user’s preferred language.

For more information, see Language IDs in Internationalization and Localization Guide. For details on how a bundle finds localized resources, see The Bundle Search Pattern in Bundle Programming Guide.

CFBundleDisplayName

CFBundleDisplayName (String - iOS, macOS) specifies the display name of the bundle, visible to users and used by Siri. If you support localized names for your bundle, include this key in your app’s Info.plist file and in the InfoPlist.strings files of your app’s language subdirectories. If you localize this key, include a localized version of the CFBundleName key as well.

Because Siri uses the value of this key, always provide a value, whether or not you localize your app.

In macOS, before displaying a localized name for your bundle, the Finder compares the value of this key against the actual name of your bundle in the file system. If the two names match, the Finder proceeds to display the localized name from the appropriate InfoPlist.strings file of your bundle. If the names do not match, the Finder displays the file-system name.

For more information about display names in macOS, see File System Programming Guide.

CFBundleDocumentTypes

CFBundleDocumentTypes (Array - iOS, macOS) contains an array of dictionaries that associate one or more document types with your app. Each dictionary is called a type-definition dictionary and contains keys used to define the document type. Table 2 lists the keys that are supported in these dictionaries.

The way you specify icon files in macOS and iOS is different because of the supported file formats on each platform. In iOS, each icon resource file is typically a PNG file that contains only one image. Therefore, it is necessary to specify different image files for different icon sizes. However, when specifying icons in macOS, you use an icon file (with extension .icns), which is capable of storing the icon at several different resolutions.

This key is supported in iOS 3.2 and later and all versions of macOS. For detailed information about UTIs, see Uniform Type Identifiers Overview.

CFBundleExecutable

CFBundleExecutable (String - iOS, macOS) identifies the name of the bundle’s main executable file. For an app, this is the app executable. For a loadable bundle, it is the binary that will be loaded dynamically by the bundle. For a framework, it is the shared library for the framework. Xcode automatically adds this key to the information property list file of appropriate projects.

For frameworks, the value of this key is required to be the same as the framework name, minus the .framework extension. If the keys are not the same, the target system may incur some launch-performance penalties. The value should not include any extension on the name.

CFBundleHelpBookFolder

CFBundleHelpBookFolder (String - macOS) identifies the folder containing the bundle’s help files. Help is usually localized to a specific language, so the folder specified by this key represents the folder name inside the .lproj directory for the selected language.

CFBundleHelpBookName

CFBundleHelpBookName (String - macOS) identifies the main help page for your app. This key identifies the name of the Help page, which may not correspond to the name of the HTML file. The Help page name is specified in the CONTENT attribute of the help file’s META tag.

CFBundleIconFile

CFBundleIconFile (String - iOS, macOS) identifies the file containing the icon for the bundle. The filename you specify does not need to include the extension, although it may. The system looks for the icon file in the main resources directory of the bundle.

If your Mac app uses a custom icon and the asset name for the icon isn’t set in CFBundleIconName, you must specify the CFBundleIconFile property. If you do not specify this property, the system (and other apps) display your bundle with a default icon.

CFBundleIconFiles

CFBundleIconFiles (Array - iOS) contains an array of strings identifying the icon files for the bundle. (It is recommended that you always create icon files using the PNG format.) When specifying your icon filenames, it is best to omit any filename extensions. Omitting the filename extension lets the system automatically detect high-resolution (@2x) versions of your image files using the standard-resolution image filename. If you include filename extensions, you must specify all image files (including the high-resolution variants) explicitly. The system looks for the icon files in the main resources directory of the bundle.

The CFBundleIcons key takes precedence over this key in iOS 5.0 and later. This key takes precedence over the CFBundleIconFile key.

This key is supported in iOS 3.2 and later only and an app may have differently sized icons to support different types of devices and different screen resolutions. In other words, an app icon is typically 57 x 57 pixels on iPhone or iPod touch but is 72 x 72 pixels on iPad. Icons at other sizes may also be included. The order of the items in this array does not matter. The system automatically chooses the most appropriately sized icon based on the usage and the underlying device type.

For information about how to create icons for your apps, including the size information for each one, see iOS Human Interface Guidelines.

CFBundleIcons

CFBundleIcons (Dictionary - iOS, tvOS) contains information about all of the icons used by the app. This key allows you to group icons based on their intended usage and specify multiple icon files together with specific keys for modifying the appearance of those icons. This dictionary can contain the following keys:

• CFBundlePrimaryIcon—This key identifies the primary icon for the Home screen and Settings app among others. The value for this key is described in Contents of the CFBundlePrimaryIcon Dictionary Entry.

• CFBundleAlternateIcons—This key identifies alternate icons for the Home screen and Settings app among others. The value for this key is described in Contents of the CFBundleAlternateIcons Dictionary Entry.

• UINewsstandIcon—This key identifies default icons to use for apps presented from Newsstand. The value for this key is a dictionary whose contents are described in Contents of the UINewsstandIcon Dictionary.

The CFBundleIcons key is supported in iOS 5.0 and later and in tvOS 9.0 and later. In iOS, you can combine this key with the CFBundleIconFiles and CFBundleIconFile keys but in iOS 5.0 and later, this key takes precedence.

CFBundleIdentifier

CFBundleIdentifier (String - iOS, macOS) uniquely identifies the bundle. Each distinct app or bundle on the system must have a unique bundle ID. The system uses this string to identify your app in many ways. For example, the preferences system uses this string to identify the app for which a given preference applies; Launch Services uses the bundle identifier to locate an app capable of opening a particular file, using the first app it finds with the given identifier; in iOS, the bundle identifier is used in validating the app’s signature.

The bundle ID string must be a uniform type identifier (UTI) that contains only alphanumeric (A-Z,a-z,0-9), hyphen (-), and period (.) characters. The string should also be in reverse-DNS format. For example, if your company’s domain is Ajax.com and you create an app named Hello, you could assign the string com.Ajax.Hello as your app’s bundle identifier.

CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion

CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion (String - iOS, macOS) identifies the current version of the property list structure. This key exists to support future versioning of the information property list file format. Xcode generates this key automatically when you build a bundle and you should not change it manually. The value for this key is currently 6.0.

CFBundleLocalizations

CFBundleLocalizations (Array - iOS, macOS) identifies the localizations handled manually by your app. If your executable is unbundled or does not use the existing bundle localization mechanism, you can include this key to specify the localizations your app does handle.

Each entry in this property’s array is a string identifying the language name or ISO language designator of the supported localization. See “Language and Locale Designations” in Internationalization and Localization Guide in Internationalization Documentation for information on how to specify language designators.

CFBundleName

CFBundleName (String - iOS, macOS) specifies the short name of the bundle, which may be displayed to users in situations such as the absence of a value for CFBundleDisplayName. This name should be less than 16 characters long.

See also CFBundleDisplayName.

CFBundlePackageType

CFBundlePackageType (String - iOS, macOS) identifies the type of the bundle and is analogous to the Mac OS 9 file type code. The value for this key consists of a four-letter code. The type code for apps is APPL; for frameworks, it is FMWK; for loadable bundles, it is BNDL. For loadable bundles, you can also choose a type code that is more specific than BNDL if you want.

All bundles should provide this key. However, if this key is not specified, the bundle routines use the bundle extension to determine the type, falling back to the BNDL type if the bundle extension is not recognized.

CFBundleShortVersionString

CFBundleShortVersionString (String - iOS, macOS) specifies the release version number of the bundle, which identifies a released iteration of the app.

The release version number is a string composed of three period-separated integers. The first integer represents major revision to the app, such as a revision that implements new features or major changes. The second integer denotes a revision that implements less prominent features. The third integer represents a maintenance release revision.

The value for this key differs from the value for CFBundleVersion, which identifies an iteration (released or unreleased) of the app.

This key can be localized by including it in your InfoPlist.strings files.

See also NSHumanReadableCopyright.

CFBundleSpokenName

CFBundleSpokenName (String - iOS, macOS) contains a suitable replacement for the app name when performing text-to-speech operations. Include this key in your app bundle when the spelling of your app might be mispronounced by the speech system. For example, if the name of your app is “MyApp123”, you might set the value of this key to “My app one two three”.

This key is supported in iOS 8 and later and in macOS 10.10 and later.

CFBundleURLTypes

CFBundleURLTypes (Array - iOS, macOS) contains an array of dictionaries, each of which describes the URL schemes (http, ftp, and so on) supported by the app. The purpose of this key is similar to that of CFBundleDocumentTypes, but it describes URL schemes instead of document types. Each dictionary entry corresponds to a single URL scheme. Table 7 lists the keys to use in each dictionary entry.

To learn about the converse operation in iOS of declaring the URL schemes an app can open, read the description of the LSApplicationQueriesSchemes key.

CFBundleVersion

CFBundleVersion (String - iOS, macOS) specifies the build version number of the bundle, which identifies an iteration (released or unreleased) of the bundle.

The build version number should be a string comprised of three non-negative, period-separated integers with the first integer being greater than zero—for example, 3.1.2. The string should only contain numeric (0-9) and period (.) characters. Leading zeros are truncated from each integer and will be ignored (that is, 1.02.3 is equivalent to 1.2.3). The meaning of each element is as follows:

• The first number represents the most recent major release and is limited to a maximum length of four digits.

• The second number represents the most recent significant revision and is limited to a maximum length of two digits.

• The third number represents the most recent minor bug fix and is limited to a maximum length of two digits.

If the value of the third number is 0, you can omit it and the second period.

While developing a new version of your app, you can include a suffix after the number that is being updated; for example 3.1.3a1. The character in the suffix represents the stage of development for the new version. For example, you can represent development, alpha, beta, and final candidate, by d, a, b, and fc. The final number in the suffix is the build version, which cannot be 0 and cannot exceed 255. When you release the new version of your app, remove the suffix.

CFPlugInDynamicRegistration

CFPlugInDynamicRegistration (String - macOS) specifies whether how host loads this plug-in. If the value is YES, the host attempts to load this plug-in using its dynamic registration function. If the value is NO, the host uses the static registration information included in the CFPlugInFactories, and CFPlugInTypes keys.

For information about registering plugins, see “Plug-in Registration” in Plug-in Programming Topics.

CFPlugInDynamicRegisterFunction

CFPlugInDynamicRegisterFunction (String - macOS) identifies the function to use when dynamically registering a plug-in. Specify this key if you want to specify one of your own functions instead of implement the default CFPlugInDynamicRegister function.

For information about registering plugins, see “Plug-in Registration” in Plug-in Programming Topics.

CFPlugInFactories

CFPlugInFactories (Dictionary - macOS) is used for static plug-in registration. It contains a dictionary identifying the interfaces supported by the plug-in. Each key in the dictionary is a universally unique ID (UUID) representing the supported interface. The value for the key is a string with the name of the plug-in factory function to call.

For information about registering plugins, see “Plug-in Registration” in Plug-in Programming Topics.

CFPlugInTypes

CFPlugInTypes (Dictionary - macOS) is used for static plug-in registration. It contains a dictionary identifying one or more groups of interfaces supported by the plug-in. Each key in the dictionary is a universally unique ID (UUID) representing the group of interfaces. The value for the key is an array of strings, each of which contains the UUID for a specific interface in the group. The UUIDs in the array corresponds to entries in the CFPlugInFactories dictionary.

For information about registering plugins, see “Plug-in Registration” in Plug-in Programming Topics.

CFPlugInUnloadFunction

CFPlugInUnloadFunction (String - macOS) specifies the name of the function to call when it is time to unload the plug-in code from memory. This function gives the plug-in an opportunity to clean up any data structures it allocated.

For information about registering plugins, see “Plug-in Registration” in Plug-in Programming Topics.