How do I reset the "@" for directories on a MacBook Pro? drwx------@ 23 johnc  staff     736 Mar 30 14:31 Downloads


I used to be allowed to ls -al the contents of my Downloads directory in my $home directory.

$ ls -l
ls: .: Operation not permitted
You can clear the extended attributes with 

xattr -c ~/Downloads


but you might want to inspect the extended attributes first to see what it is you're  actually clearing (xattr ~/Downloads).