Download Open Zip Files Mac

Posted on  by 

When you first purchased your Mac, one of the biggest deciding factors you considered is most probably disk space. But as years go by using your computer, its disk space seems to become smaller and smaller by the day, no matter how diligently you delete unneeded files and unused programs. In the computing world, one could never have too much storage space. There are some ways you could save space on your Mac, including manually deleting files and programs or automatically doing so with the help of apps designed to clean out junk such as Outbyte MacRepair. Another way — albeit less popular — to free up Mac space is to compress and zip files. In this article, we’ll show you how to zip a file on Mac, unzip it, and protect it with a password.

How to Zip a File on Mac

Converting any standard file to a compressed zip file the traditional way is effortless. You can do this to photos, videos, audio files, and documents, among others. Here are the steps:

How

How to Zip a File or Folder on Mac Click the Finder icon in your Mac's Dock to make sure it's the active application. Right-click (or Control-click ) on the file or folder you want to compress. Mar 12, 2009 I use Mac Tiger 10.4.11 When I download.Zip files, they are automatically unzipped by whichever program I have set as my default '(de)compression-program' on Mac.

  • In Finder, look for the file or folder you want to compress and zip. Right-click or Ctrl-click on it.
  • Select “Compress [name of file or folder].”
  • Wait for the compression process to finish. Larger files may take time to end compressing.
  • Once done, a new .zip file will appear in the same location as the original file or folder. You will also hear a system alert tone to notify you of the recently completed compression.

You can now send these compressed files or folders via email. You may also choose to delete the original files and folders if you want to save on disk space, but note that you can’t readily open or view the zipped versions. You’ll need to unzip them first (more on that later).

Pro Tip: Scan your Mac for performance issues, junk files, harmful apps, and security threats
that can cause system issues or slow performance.

Free Scan for Mac Issues
410.674downloads

Special offer. About Outbyte, uninstall instructions, EULA, Privacy Policy.

How to Zip Multiple Files on Mac

You can also compress multiple files and/or folders. Here’s how:

  • First, you have to create a new folder in Finder or Desktop. Press Shift + Command (CMD) + N).
  • Name the new folder.
  • Drag the files you want to zip together to the folder you just created. IMPORTANT: Before dropping the files, hold down Alt to make sure that the files are copied to the new folder.
  • Once all the files you want to zip together are in the folder, Ctrl+Click on the folder, then choose Compress.
  • A new zip file should now be created.
  • Drag the folder (not the zip file) you created earlier to the Trash.

How To Zip And Unzip Files And Folders On Mac

How to Change the Save Location of Your Zip Files

By default, a zipped file or folder will be saved in the same place where the original is saved. But, you may also choose a dedicated destination for all of your compressed files. It is done by opening the compression app. In Mac, it’s called the Archive Utility. A simple Spotlight search can easily find it. After searching for the app on Spotlight, open it. Click the Archive Utility drop-down menu at the top of the screen, then click Preferences. Select the menu named Save archive, then select into. Next, choose your desired destination.

How to Open and Unzip a Zip File on Mac

Opening a zip file to view its contents is pretty straightforward. Just double-click on the file, and it will open. The zip file can still be seen in the location folder, but an unzipped copy will also be created in the same location. Meanwhile, if were sent a compressed file in a format other than zipping, such as .rar, you’ll need to use an app to decompress it, such as The Unarchiver. You can get this app for free from the App Store. Once installed, the app automatically works pretty much exactly like your Mac’s built-in zip tool. Just double-click the archive file, then the files and folders will be extracted and saved in the same location as the archive file.

How to Enable or Disable a Browser From Extracting Zipped ‘Safe’ Files Automatically

Some web browsers, such as Safari, automatically unzip downloaded compressed files that they consider to be safe by default. In Safari, these safe files include movies, pictures, sounds, PDFs, text documents, and archives. However, if you prefer to decompress downloaded zip files yourself, you can opt out of this feature.

In Safari, go to the drop-down menu. Locate and select Preferences, then click the General tab. Down below the window, you will see “Open “safe” files after downloading.” Leave the box checked if you want Safari to decompress these safe files automatically. Otherwise, untick the box.

How to Protect Your Zip Files With a Password

Now, here’s the more challenging bit. If you want to conceal some of your files, you can do so protecting it with a password. It is an excellent solution for highly confidential files since you probably won’t bother going through the quite complicated process to protect regular files. You may also do this for files that you are about to send through an unsecured messaging or mailing system. When you encrypt a zip file or folder, anyone who is trying to access the file using whether a Mac or PC will have to enter the password you create. To protect your zip file with a password, you’ll have to do it in the Terminal. As an example, let’s assume that the file is named softwaretested.jpg. Now, follow these steps:

  • Open Terminal by going to Applications > Utilities > Terminal. You may also search for it on Spotlight.
  • Type in cd Desktop then hit Enter/Return.
  • Type in zip -e softwaretested.zip softwaretested.jpg, then hit Enter/Return.
  • At this point, Terminal will ask you for the password. Type in the password you have in mind. Note that it will appear as if nothing is happening, but it’s designed this way so that the password will be concealed.
  • When done typing the password, hit Enter/Return.
  • The Terminal will ask you to verify the password. Type it again, then hit Enter/Return.
  • Let Terminal finish the job. Status progress will be shown in the form of a percentage. When done, close the Terminal window.

A Note on Naming Your Zip Files

If you plan to protect a zip file or folder with a password, it is recommended that you don’t put spaces on the file name as much as possible. Telling the Terminal to password-protect a file with a name that has spaces will require you to do extra work. For instance, if your filename is software tested.jpg, you’ll have to type the code so as:

zip -e software tested.zip software tested.jpg

It’s not that difficult, but you should take extra caution whenever dealing with a file with spaces on its filename.

Download Open Zip Files Mac Download

How to Password-Protect a Zip Folder

If it’s a zip folder you want to put a password on, change the -e extension to -er. For instance, zip -er softwaretested.zip softwaretested.

How To Download And Open Zip Files On Mac

How to Open a Password-Protected Zip File or Folder

If you were sent a password-protected zip file or want to open your encrypted files, just double-click on them as usual, then enter the password when asked.

Zipping files on Mac is just one of the ways you can save space on your computer and compress big files and folders before sending them to someone else. Know of other file compression tips and methods? Share them with us in the comments below!

If you’re running into errors and your system is suspiciously slow, your computer needs some maintenance work. Download Outbyte PC Repair for Windows, Outbyte Antivirus for Windows, or Outbyte MacRepair for macOS to resolve common computer performance issues.Fix computer troubles by downloading the compatible tool for your device.
See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy Policy.

Download 7-Zip for MacOS. 7Zip is a great app that should be included on iTunes. As productivity is a concern on all Apple devices, the development of 7Zip would be a great delight for all its users. I mean, why not? It is the most powerful and secure archiving and file compression tool in its category and field. For more resources about 7Zip for other operating systems, check out our other articles on 7Zip.

So, you are one of society’s opulent citizens or perhaps meticulous with the software and security. Thus, you prefer using Mac computers. As a matter of fact, some programs and software for Windows, Linux, and Mac are programmed differently. This goes the same with 7Zip for Mac.

By default, Mac OS X is incapable of handling these files. But this shouldn’t be much of an issue as there are lots of other archiving tools available that can open a .7z file and other file compression formats.

The 7Zip file formats are considered better file compression settings because of their high security and overall stability. It 7Zip can compress any file much better than ZIP and WinRAR or WinZip. This makes 7Zip safer and a much better choice.

Contents

  • 1 A Walkthrough on 7-Zip for Mac
    • 1.1 Reminder

A Walkthrough on 7-Zip for Mac

Keep on reading as we are going to walk you through the steps for opening .7z archive files regardless of what version of Mac OS you are using. Don’t worry, it is easy and quick to do even it gets an error cannot open a file as an archive sometimes. Here’s how it goes.

  1. Download “The Unarchiver” first. The latest version is 4.3.0 and support macOS 10.7 or later. the file is 15.2 MB. You can either download it from the Mac App Store or click here for direct download.
  2. The application is relatively small so you should be able to get it installed for a few seconds depending on your internet speed.
  3. As soon as The Unarchiver application finishes installing, open it and you will see the file association list.
  4. Launch the Unarchiver and there you’ll find the file association list, inform the Unarchiver to associate it with .7z files.
  5. The moment that you’ve associated the Unarchiver with .7z you could then double-click any .7z file on your Mac computer. It will then open and uncompress like other archive format or launch Unarchiver and just drag and drop the 7z files to the utility.

This is everything that you have to know in opening any .7z archive files saved on your Mac computer. After installing the UnArchiver and associated it with .7z 7Zip files, you may now launch the .7z archive simply by double-clicking on it. Inside the UnArchiver utility, your file will open and decompress the original 7z file. It will exit the app automatically when it is finished. It is possible to directly open the Unarchiver and open the file in the Unarchiver directly where it’ll be extracted.

Reminder

Since 7Zip archives have undergone a strong compression procedure, it sometimes takes a while in order to completely extract large 7z files. Don’t be surprised as well if the 7Zip has expanded to something bigger than the original file size as the size of the archive. This is totally normal. Just be sure that you have enough disk space to accommodate all the uncompressed data.

Unarchiver is a well-known solution to all kinds of archive formats available on Mac. It’s been discussed as an alternative when you have to unRAR and open RAR files in Mac OS and it can open virtually any archive format you might come across. This can include but not limited to:

  • 7z
  • zip
  • sit
  • tgz
  • tar
  • gz
  • rar
  • bzip and;
  • hqx

Due to its expansive nature and free of charge, it is a wonderful addition to your Mac software toolkit. Well, it is comparable to a Swiss army knife but for computers.

The Complete Package

The Unarchiver provides support to every release of the Mac OS software that’s in use. This is regardless if you’re using the latest release, Sierra, macOS High Sierra, Mac OS X El Capitan, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Snow Leopard, Yosemite, and so forth. It’ll work and can get the job done in opening and decompressing zip as well as other archive formats available.

Coments are closed