How to Open Zip Archive on Mac

Are you struggling to open a zip archive on your Mac? You're not alone! There are various paid alternatives like Stuffit Expander and WinZIP, but there's no need to buy an app for this as most free apps will do just fine. The solution is simple: just use another app to unzip.

To get started, right-click (or Control-click) on the file or folder you want to compress. This will give you a dropdown menu with various options. From here, select 'Open With' and choose an alternative app like The Unarchiver, which is free and does the job just as well.

Even though macOS's built-in Archive Utility is your default choice for zipping and unzipping files and folders, it turns out not to be the best choice for unzipping. zip files created on Windows PCs seem to be problematic every now and then, causing errors when you try to unzip them with the Archive Utility.

So what can you do? One option is to use PeaZip, a free and open-source archive manager application that's available as a precompiled binary DMG package for Darwin and Apple Macintosh. With PeaZip, you can extract zip files, as well as other formats like 7z, rar, tar, and more.

Another solution is to try using The Unarchiver, which is also free and does an excellent job of unzipping even the most stubborn zip files. Simply right-click on the zip file and select 'Open With' > 'The Unarchiver', and you should be able to access your files in no time.

So there you have it - two simple solutions for opening zip archives on your Mac without breaking a sweat!

How to open zip archive on mac