How would you stop Mac from automatically unzipping files?

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.

Please tell me what I should do to stop my .Zip files from automatically being unzipped immediately after I download them.

I assume you're using Safari.

Go to Safari > Preferences > General and uncheck "Open 'safe' files after downloading"

Thanks for helping me & others. I'm using Mozilla Firefox as my default web-browser. I was instructed to select "Preferences" in the Firefox-menu, and look in the "Applications" section of the Preferences wizard, however .ZIP isn't listed in that section.

So what is causing my Mac to automatically Unzip files without my permission?

Here's a screenshot, which shows that ".Zip" is not listed in that "Applications-window":

edit: deleted

It's in Applications but you are looking the wrong place. Check my picture. It's called PC Zip Archive.

There is another setting there for DMG's.

Thank all of you for your messages. I'm using Mac Tiger 10.4.11. That probably explains why your "Content Type-section" (listed in your Firefox "Application dialog-box") shows "PC ZIP" and mine doesn't do so.

If you look at my screenshot, any of you would see that I was looking in the correct location (under "Content Type"). You'd also notice all of the file-types are listed in alphabetical-order. I scrolled down so you could see I was in the right section.

I'm not downloading ZIP files with Safari. So Firefox is the only other application (besides Stuffit-Expander) that could be automatically causing my Mac to unzip ZIP files, right?

PC Zip archive would not be on the screen shot you posted. It would be alphabetically prior to anything on that screen.

bobtomay said:

PC Zip archive would not be on the screen shot you posted. It would be alphabetically prior to anything on that screen.

Click to expand...

Also you made a suggestion and it's being totally ignored. I was going to post the same thing as you Bob till I found those settings in Firefox.

There is no Leopard version of Firefox. There is one firefox. Try what Bobtomay suggested. It MAY very well be a system wide setting on 10.4.

Perhaps just using a different archiver will solve your problem. I use BetterZip. Instead of immediately extracting the file, it will instead show the contents and let you pick and choose what (if anything) you'd like to extract.

MacItBetter | Compress zip and tar archives on your Mac with BetterZip.

NewsAndHistory said:

If you look at my screenshot, any of you would see that I was looking in the correct location (under "Content Type"). You'd also notice all of the file-types are listed in alphabetical-order. I scrolled down so you could see I was in the right section.

Click to expand...

If you are still having trouble in spite of the other responses, please post multiple screenshots of that Applications setting in Firefox so we can see ALL of your file types listed. You may simply be overlooking something.

On a similar note...

On a quite similar note, can any of you tell me how I can make my Mac stop auto extracting the zip files into temporary folders? It's really annoying, and because I download Custom Content for games such as the Sims 3, I have to empty my Trash really frequently, because those little tmp folders take up too much space and crowd my Trash up. Any advice? Apple - Support was useless unless you're a programmer, and I'm not that technically savvy. Is there an easier way to do it, or am I going to have to take Programming courses?

If a browser is set to open content, it may save it to a temp folder and decompress there. That's the trade off you get for having the convenience of automatic file opening. Why not just download the files, save them to a directory you can easily access (such as Downloads) and decompress them there?

Now Why Didn't I Think of That?...

You're smart. I'll do that. Although it seems to trade off; sometimes it does it, sometimes it just saves it straight to the Downloads folder. But your suggestion is better. Thanks for the suggestion!