How to Open Zip Files on Mac OS

How to Open Zip Files on Mac OS

Zip files are archives that function as a single compressed package of a either multiple files, a folder, or a single item. Zip files are frequently encountered when downloading stuff from the web or elsewhere to a Mac, and while the Zip format used to be widely limited to the Windows world, .zip archives are often created and used on Mac OS now too.

If you get a zip file you may be wondering how you can open the archive to view what it is and extract the internal components of the zip archive. Wonder no more, it turns out that opening and unzipping files on a Mac is very easy thanks to the built-in Archive Utility tool.

Remember: a zip file (with a .zip extension) is simply a container holding another file or files.

You dont so much open it as you extract it to reveal the contents of the zip archive. For example, a single zip file may contain a handful of documents of various file types, or an entire folder of JPG files, or an application, or any such similar data.

The zip file is simply the compressed data presented as a single archive. Extracting a zip file on a Mac is super easy: Thats it. In the example above, a zip file named Archive.zip was extracted to create a folder called Archive which contains the contents of the origin zip file. The built in Archive Utility tool in Mac OS will open the zip archive and extract the file(s), typically they are placed within a folder of the same name of the zip archive, minus the .zip file extension. Y

ou can also extract zip files by right-clicking (or Control+clicking) on a .zip archive and choosing to Open, or if you have third party unzip utilities installed (more on that in a moment), you can choose Open With and select another archive tool.

The Mac also includes an ultra simple or even to . * If the zip archive is password protected, the proper password must be entered before the zip file will be extracted. Another option is to use the to open .zip archives on the Mac. To do this, you will need to download and install The Unarchiver first.

Once The Unarchiver is installed and launched, it will want to associate with all known archive types on the Mac. This enables the third party tool to open zip archives and other items in Mac OS that the default Archive Utility may not support, which is another benefit. The Unarchiver can open zip archives as well as , , , , .sit, gzip gz, tar, and many other file archive formats that you may encounter when downloading data from the internet or in emails.

That vast support for extracting a wide variety of file types is one of the many reasons why The Unarchiver is a great third party app to add to a Mac. Whether you use the default Archive Utility tool that comes with Mac OS to open zip files or go for the third party solution like The Unarchiver is entirely up to you, both will open a zip file with a simple double-click option. The unzip command is available in the Terminal to unzip archived zip files as well.

The syntax is simple, just point the command at a zip archive to extract it to the present working directory. You can also make a zip file via command line if desired, using the zip command and pointing at a file or path to a folder as discussed . You may be wondering if its possible to view the contents of a compressed zip archive, without bothering to extract the actual archive. In fact, you can easily do this using multiple methods, some of which are built directly into Mac OS via the command line. You can if this interests you.

You can if interested. The short version is that you can select a file or group of files, right-click, and choose Compress to make a quick zip archive of those selected items. Its very easy. Have any other questions about zip files? Let us know in the comments!