Handling RAR / ZIP / 7zip on OS X

I'm disappointed to find that no one in the Mac community has created a great all-round app for opening and creating zip and rar files. 7zip on Windows is perfect, really has no flaws. I've looked for a while now but havent anything that comes close on OSX

Any suggestions?

I use muCommander sometimes

MDJCM said:

I'm disappointed to find that no one in the Mac community has created a great all-round app for opening and creating zip and rar files. 7zip on Windows is perfect, really has no flaws. I've looked for a while now but havent anything that comes close on OSX

Any suggestions?

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StuffIt Deluxe 2010

The Unarchiver to expand anything.

The Finder to compress things.

D3v1L80Y said:

StuffIt Deluxe 2010

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i think i'll give that a go thanks

There is Better Zip which works great. It's not a free application though, but it's opened everything I have ever thrown at it.

I use Stuffit 12. Maybe I should get the Deluxe.

dtravis7 said:

There is Better Zip which works great. It's not a free application though, but it's opened everything I have ever thrown at it.

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I'd recommend BetterZip too. It's sadly one of the few that lets you preview what's inside of the archive before you extract it.

Does it create archives too? Or just opens anything?

Better Zip does it all including making archives.

There is an unofficial command line version of 7zip for OS X.

krmathis' homepage

The only GUI type I found isn't free.

The Unarchiver here too, it decompresses everything you want there, but I use UnrarX for .rar, because it's better with password protected files.

At first I tried RARMachine for .rar files but it didn't unpack anything else so I downloaded Zipeg ( www.zipeg.com ) which handles ZIP, RAR, 7z, ARJ, LHA, TGZ, TAR and more. It's free.

AloneInTokyo said:

At first I tried RARMachine for .rar files but it didn't unpack anything else so I downloaded Zipeg ( Zipeg - Got pictures? Zip thru JPEG photo archives. ) which handles ZIP, RAR, 7z, ARJ, LHA, TGZ, TAR and more. It's free.

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I caught Zipeg phoning home constantly with LittleSnitch. Wasn't pleased with that, not sure exactly why it needed to do that.

cwa107 said:

I caught Zipeg phoning home constantly with LittleSnitch. Wasn't pleased with that, not sure exactly why it needed to do that.

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Unless it was looking for updates, I would never use a program that phoned home all the time. I also wonder what it was doing.

I use a portable version of WinRar in Crossover a lot

cwa107 said:

I caught Zipeg phoning home constantly

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What do you mean?

AloneInTokyo said:

What do you mean?

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Sending outbound network traffic back to the parent company, on a consistent basis, even long after initialization (when a program could potentially check for updates). I haven't a clue what that traffic contained, but it seemed fishy to me and stopped using it immediately.

BetterZip so far has been the best one i've found.

Now if only App developers would charge sensible license prices ($5) for small utilities

MDJCM said:

BetterZip so far has been the best one i've found.

Now if only App developers would charge sensible license prices ($5) for small utilities

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Nowadays $5 might buy you a large cup of coffee at Starbucks. Do you really think an author should only charge $5 for something he/she has devoted time and energy to? Some authors charge nothing (freeware) and I commend them for that, but others ask renumeration. And they certainly deserve fair compensation for their work.

Regards.