---
title: "Extended attributes"
url: https://storagestudio.us/wiki/glossary-extended-attributes
category: "Glossary"
tags: ["glossary", "moving folders", "metadata"]
summary: "Extended attributes are small pieces of extra information attached to a file, such as its Finder tags or where it was downloaded from. Folder moves keep them."
updated: 2026-10-01T05:35:52.000Z
---

# Extended attributes

Extended attributes are small pieces of extra information attached to a file, such as its Finder tags or where it was downloaded from. Folder moves keep them.

**Extended attributes** are small pieces of extra information attached to a file, kept alongside its contents. You rarely see them directly, but you see what they do: a file's [Finder tags](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/glossary-finder-tags), the note of which website a download came from, and the check macOS runs the first time you open an app you downloaded all rely on them.

When Storage Studio moves a folder between your Mac and your external drive, extended attributes are copied along with each file.

Copies to a cloud account usually keep less, because each provider stores only some of a file's extra information. A drive formatted as [exFAT](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/glossary-exfat) can also behave differently from a Mac-formatted one.

See also: [What a move keeps](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/what-a-move-keeps) · [Moving folders safely](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/moving-folders-safely)

## What links here

- [Finder tags](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/glossary-finder-tags)
- [What a move keeps](https://storagestudio.us/wiki/what-a-move-keeps)