There's a hidden file with extension .padl in my home directory and I don't know what it's for
Like any hidden files, it’s quite safe to do the following since if you don’t know what it does, the chance even a well intentioned person on the internet knows your setup or needs better than you are low. Better to be safe and free to experiment is my motto.


Make a second admin account (assuming you only have this one account). Log out of the current account and be sure you can log in as the new account and restart.
Back up the file (if you want)
Delete the file


Now you have a line in the sand, escape plan and will know if the file is recreated again the exact date/time it came into existence. What you’re seeing here is a data dump of ObjectiveC data from a program or script.


https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25397048/extract-cfkeyedarchiveruid-value#27338814