Stationery Pad on Mac: Turn Any File Into a Template

Everyone has a file they reuse — an invoice, a letterhead, a project boilerplate — and everyone has accidentally typed over the master copy at least once. macOS has had a fix since the classic Mac OS days: Stationery Pad, a single checkbox that turns any file into a self-duplicating template. It still works perfectly on Ventura, Sonoma, and Sequoia, and almost nobody knows it exists.

Turn a file into a template

1. Build the file exactly the way you want the template to look — the invoice with your details filled in, the letterhead with the logo placed, the spreadsheet with formulas ready.
2. Select it in Finder and press Cmd+I (or choose File → Get Info).
3. In the General section, check Stationery Pad.
4. Close the Get Info window. That is the whole setup.

The file's icon changes subtly — it looks like a stack with a corner turned up, a nod to a pad of paper you tear sheets from. That is exactly the mental model: the file is now the pad, and every open tears off a fresh sheet.

What happens when you open it

Double-click a Stationery Pad file and macOS does not open the original. Instead it creates a copy and opens that. Depending on the app, you will see one of two behaviors:

• Most apps open an untitled or duplicated document containing the template's contents, and the first save prompts you for a name and location.
• Some apps open a copy that Finder has already created alongside the original (you may notice a "copy" file appear in the folder).

Either way the original never opens, so it cannot be overwritten by accident. Type, save, done — your master stays pristine. To edit the template itself, uncheck Stationery Pad in Get Info first, make your changes, then check it again.

Undo it

Reversing the change is the same checkbox: select the file, press Cmd+I, and untick Stationery Pad. The file goes back to being a normal document. Nothing about the file's contents is modified in either direction — the flag lives in the file's metadata.

Where it beats the alternatives

Pages, Numbers, and Word have their own template systems, so why bother? Stationery Pad wins in three situations:

• Apps with no template feature. TextEdit documents, PDFs you fill in with Preview, image files you annotate — anything openable can be a template.
• Templates that live with a project. A "meeting-notes.txt" pad in the project folder is visible to everyone browsing the folder, unlike a template buried inside one app's chooser on one person's Mac.
• Shared folders. Drop a Stationery Pad invoice into a shared drive and colleagues can open fresh copies without anyone touching the master. The flag travels with the file on Mac-formatted disks — though be aware it is Finder metadata, so it will not survive a trip through most web upload services.

One limitation to know: apps that autosave in place (like some Pages workflows) always respect the copy behavior when launched by Finder, but opening the file from inside an app's Open dialog can bypass Stationery Pad. Launch templates by double-clicking in Finder and you will never hit the edge case.

Pair it with Get Info's other tricks

The Get Info window also locks files, changes default apps, and swaps icons. Our guide to Finder's Get Info window covers everything hiding behind Cmd+I.