Archaeology
Archaeology is a macOS utility for opening binary files and decoding structured formats used in Apple software, code signing, and related data.
What is Archaeology?
Archaeology is a native macOS utility for inspecting binary files and decoding structured data formats that are common in Apple platform software. It helps developers, security researchers, and advanced Mac users open a file, identify a supported format, and explore its contents in a readable view instead of raw bytes. The app supports recursive decoding of embedded data, shows detailed information about selected values, and can export or copy decoded data for use in other tools. It also includes search in supported views and a bundled command-line tool, trowel, for opening files from Terminal. Archaeology is published by Randy Saldinger through Mothers Ruin Software and is designed for modern macOS systems on Intel and Apple Silicon Macs.
Key features
- Open binary files and decode supported formats into readable views
- Recursively decode embedded data values inside larger files
- Inspect selected values with size, offsets, hex output, and digests
- Export a decoded value to a file or copy it to the clipboard
- Search supported decoded views such as property lists and archives
- Open files from Terminal with the bundled trowel command-line tool
- Examine code-signing data such as requirements and launch constraints
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Safety overview
Status: Mostly safe
Archaeology is a notarized, sandboxed Mac app built for inspecting files you choose to open. Access to selected files is normal for its purpose, and its update check uses a small network request rather than silently installing updates. When working with downloaded executables or other sensitive files, opening them in a sandboxed app can affect quarantine metadata in some cases, so it is wise to use copies of important samples if you are doing careful analysis workflows.
Recommendation: Keep Archaeology if you inspect binary files, code-signing data, property lists, or related macOS internals. If you do not use these analysis features, you can remove it without affecting macOS, though any convenience from its trowel tool or recent-file integrations will be lost.
Common paths
/Applications/Archaeology.app
Support paths
~/Library/Application Scripts/com.mothersruin.Archaeology
Container paths
~/Library/Containers/com.mothersruin.Archaeology
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