Daily articles and news from the world of Apple.

Write about archiving files and archivers for Mac OS suggested by one of the readers who asked me a question: are there archivers and dearchivers for Macs? I will try to describe what Mac OS has out of the box and what else can be delivered to make it comfortable to work with archives.

Archiving Utility - zip archives

One of the conveniences that I discovered after switching from Win to Mac was the built-in support for zip archives in Mac OS X - one of the most common formats that is supported in many operating systems. To create a zip archive, just select the file(s) in the Finder, click right click mouse (or ctrl+click) and select “Compress” in the context menu. After which a zip file is created with a copy of the files and with the name “Archive.zip”, if there is more than one file to be archived, or if there is only one file, then the name of the archive will coincide with the name of the original file.

Unpacking zip files is just as easy as archiving. By default, the “Archive Utility” is launched automatically by double-clicking on a zip archive, which leads to unpacking the contents of the archive into a folder of the same name if there is more than one file. In addition, the original zip file remains untouched, that is, when unpacking, a copy of the archive contents is created.

The built-in zip support also manifests itself when downloading files from the Web in Safari. After the zip is downloaded, it will be automatically unpacked by the same “Archiving Utility”. In most cases, this default behavior is “just right,” but sometimes it’s annoying.

Working with archives from the Mac OS X Terminal

More experienced users can create archives from the Terminal. There are several utilities for this in Mac OS X, for example, gzip, bzip2, tar. Moreover, if the first two are archivers, then tar is a “packer” of files - it archives a group of files into one without compression. tar is used in conjunction with gzip and bzip2, which, according to the “Unix tradition”, can only compress one file: they perform one function, but well. Therefore, they usually first pack files or folders with files into a tar archive, and then compress the resulting file with gzip or bzip2.

You can read more about these archivers on Wikipedia: , . Many, of course, will not want to bother with the Terminal for archiving files. But it is worth noting that bzip2, for example, compresses better than standard zip or gzip, although it is slower. In addition, gzip is used by Mac OS itself to archive logs, for example.

I often make manual backups of files using the tar utility, which correctly saves information about files and folders (permissions, creation time, etc.). In addition, tar can be “asked” to compress the tar archive into bzip2. As a result, with one command, with the appropriate keys, we get a .tbz file in which the files are correctly packed (tar) and well compressed (bz2).

Non-standard method - .dmg

Among the standard set Mac programs OS has Disk Utility, which is not intended for archiving files, but in principle this can be achieved from it. The idea is simple - creating compressed dmg images. To do this, you need to go to Disk Utility to the address “File–>New–>Disk image from folder...” (shortcut Command+Shift+N) and select the folder with the files in the dialog that appears. Next, in the next dialog for saving the dmg image, select the name and format of the image - “compressed”. If I understand everything correctly, the content will be compressed with the same zip.

I even once tested the compression ratio in dmg and zip. It turns out approximately the same - compressed dmg images are slightly (10%–15%) larger than a zip archive.

I took different types of files with a total size of 100 MB:

Third Party Archivers

The main reason why people reach out to install some kind of program for working with archives is the need to unpack rar files. Historically, rar was widely used on “one sixth of the landmass.” This, in my opinion, is due to the ability to split a rar archive into volumes (parts), a higher compression ratio than zip, and a set of all sorts of gadgets such as setting passwords for the archive and the like. The level of compression was important 5 years ago, when the price per gigabyte of hard drive space was high, recording to DVD was also expensive, and you couldn’t invest much in email.

As a result, many people on Windows continue to use rar as the main archiver, and there are still a lot of files packed in rar on the Internet.

Stuffit Expander

The program is what is called a “must have”. The main advantages are that it is free and the ability to unpack a bunch of formats, including rar. Stuffit Expander cannot archive at all; for this purpose there is its older (and paid) brother Stuffit Deluxe.

I won’t be mistaken if I say that in 99.9% of cases, the Archiving Utility + Stuffit Expander is enough for a happy mac life.

Stuffit Deluxe

This archiver costs $79, but it can do much more than Stuffit Expander. Firstly, it can compress into more than 20 archive formats, including rar, sitx, cab and all the formats mentioned above in the text. To be honest, I don’t use it, but if you often need to clip into something exotic on a Mac, or need to split archives into volumes for uploading to file storage (hello Varez :), then Stuffit Deluxe will certainly come in handy.

A good alternative to Stuffit Expander, and the built-in archiver in Mac OS, may be The Unarchiver. From the name it is already clear that the software is designed for unpacking files. The Unarchiver supports many archiving formats (including sitx from the developers of Stuffit), integrates with Finder, does not confuse non-English file names, etc. The Unarchiver is free and open-source.

There is nothing like WinRAR for Mac yet. The developers of the rar format have just waited for command-line utilities. It is distributed free of charge as a 40-day version (then you have to pay, although I don’t know how they control it), and if sometimes you need to download it in rar and are friends with the Terminal, then nothing else is needed for normal work and a carefree life.

BetterZip

Not very expensive ($19.95) and quite a popular archiver (thanks for the tip in the comments). Supports a lot of formats: IP, SIT, TAR, GZip, BZip2, RAR, 7-Zip, CPIO, ARJ, LZH/LHA, JAR, WAR, CAB, ISO, CHM, RPM, DEB, NSIS, BIN, HQX, DD. In addition, there is support for quick preview of the archive via Quick Look. To do this, you need to download a special plugin.

It is also worth paying attention to this archiver ($26). Like BetterZip, iArchiver is written in the best traditions of Mac-Usability. Supports not many formats: clamps - Zip, DMG, 7-zip, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, Z and CPIO; unpacks: Zip, RAR, 7-zip, StuffIt, Gzip, Bzip2, ARJ, Z, LhA, DMG, hqx, rpm and so on. In addition, it can convert rar archives to zip. In general, it is simple and understandable.

So, here is an archive in RAR format. You’ve never dealt with it before, and you also weren’t able to unzip the files in it with one click. What to do? Now we'll tell you!

What is RAR?

The RAR file format is similar to the more familiar ZIP file. Both of them are “archives”, i.e. contain several other files in compressed form. Thanks to archives, you can, for example, send a message to a friend or colleague via email not thousands of individual files, but just one file with the entire archive.

RAR is an abbreviation for Roshal ARchive, i.e. "Roshal Archive". Its creator is the famous Russian programmer Evgeny Roshal. “People” know Evgeniy Lazarevich mainly for his other popular product - FAR Manager. He created the RAR format to correct the shortcomings of ZIP. As a result, RAR archives “weigh” less, making it possible to divide them into several parts and correct errors that occur.

Now even more effective solutions have already been developed, such as the 7-Zip format. But RAR is still very popular, and it will be a long time before it retires. So the ability to manage it will be very useful in the near future.

RAR is a proprietary format, so it's not surprising that macOS doesn't have programs to work with it by default. But there is nothing “that” here - you can easily solve this problem by installing a third-party application, for example, the free Keka archiver for Mac.

The application does exactly what a program of this kind should do - opens any archive in RAR format. All you need to do is download and install Keka, and then double-click on the RAR archive with the left mouse button (or right-click once and select Keka from the Open menu).

Keka has two disadvantages - firstly, you will not be able to see the contents of the archive before unpacking it, as you are used to doing in Windows. This probably won’t stop 99% of users; everyone else is advised to find another program for themselves. Secondly, Keka cannot create RAR archives; in this regard, the choice is limited to ZIP, 7-Zip, TAR, GZIP and BZIP2.

Archivers - software to compress files. This section presents free analogues of WinRAR.

Below you will find free programs, distributed under licenses

7-Zip

Windows, Linux, Mac OS X official website February 06, 2016 GNU Lesser General Public License Archivers 15

7-Zip is one of the best free archivers. The program has a high compression and extraction speed, supports setting a password for the archive and works with the following formats: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP, WIM, can unpack ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO , LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.

B1 Free Archiver

Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Android official website February 06, 2016 Free software - license for personal and commercial use Archivers

B1 Free Archiver free multi-platform file archiver. In addition, the program can act as file manager. The archiver has been translated into more than 30 languages and works under the following operating systems like Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and Android. B1 Free Archiver supports functions such as compression, decompression and encryption (password setting) for ZIP and B1's own format.

Starting this review with such a title, I realized that not all readers would agree with me. There are so many apps on the Mac Appstore that work with archives, why is BetterZip the only one? I'll try to explain my point of view.

When choosing an archiver for Mac, I was guided by the following criteria:

Ability to archive and unpack all popular archive formats. Among the “desktop” ones, these are ZIP, RAR and 7Z. It would be desirable to be able to create archives of the less popular GZip and BZip. The ZIP format alone in the built-in archiver is no longer enough. Sometimes you need to work with RAR archives, it is often used on servers for incremental backup files.
View the contents of the archive without the need to unpack, as well as update files in the archive. This is generally already a de facto standard for archivers, to which many are accustomed using WinZip and WinRAR. It's not at all convenient without it.
Integration into context menu Finder. First of all, archiving selected files from the context menu.
Flexible settings for creating archives and compatibility of created archives with Windows. These include archiving profiles and ignoring OS X service files and folders (have you seen what an archive created by built-in tools looks like in Windows?).
Application design. This is where I get really boring when I nitpick the design of Mac apps and their icons. I appreciate OS X for its unique design and ease of use, and I can't stand looking at programs that look like something straight out of the 90s. Perhaps this point is not critical for everyone, but I am sure that I am not the only one.
Application support. Personally, I rarely use applications whose latest version was released 5 years ago.

Which archivers could have been included in this review, but were not included and why:

What BetterZip lacks is a library in Automator. It would be cool to be able to automate the process of creating or unpacking archives.

Let me remind you that BetterZip can be downloaded from the official website. It is possible to use the program for educational purposes. Cost today - $19.95 .

Thanks to Robert Rezabek for providing the BetterZip license.

The “rar” archive cannot be opened on a MAC unless you have installed the archiver designed for this - WinRAR. Here you can download WinRAR for Mac OS X for free, or rather its console version (its correct name is RAR). The download link is at the bottom of the page, after the description.

Unfortunately, GUI WinRAR on Mac OS does not, but this does not mean that it is difficult to use. It is enough to remember a couple of commands and the process of unpacking archives will not cause you any difficulties.

After installation, type the command rar(or unrar). If the archiver is installed correctly, you will see information about its version and brief help on how to use it.

For help dial:

For example, to create an archive without compression, use the command:

Rar a -m0 archive.rar folder/

With maximum compression, command:

Rar a -m5 archive.rar folder/

To unpack all files into the current directory:

Unrar e archive.rar

Advantages of WinRAR for Mac OS

Easy to use if you know the commands. But there are not many of them and their syntax is not complicated;
It is possible to protect your archives with a password and encrypt all archived files;
Selecting the degree of file compression, archiving without compressing folders and files for ease of storage and sending by mail.