The Unarchiver is the built-in default file compression utility for Mac OS X. Unlike Windows, which only supports the ZIP format out-of-the-box, The Unarchiver handles most major formats. Best iPhone Xs Cases Mastering the Mac How to compress a file on your Mac Save space by compressing your Mac files into ZIP archives just a single click away. 18 Jun 2015 1. How to compress a file on your Mac. Select the file or folder in the Finder.
7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio.
Download 7-Zip 19.00 (2019-02-21) for Windows:
Link | Type | Windows | Size |
---|---|---|---|
Download | .exe | 32-bit x86 | 1 MB |
Download | .exe | 64-bit x64 | 1 MB |
License
7-Zip is free software with open source. The most of the code is under the GNU LGPL license. Some parts of the code are under the BSD 3-clause License. Also there is unRAR license restriction for some parts of the code. Read 7-Zip License information.
You can use 7-Zip on any computer, including a computer in a commercial organization. You don't need to register or pay for 7-Zip.
The main features of 7-Zip
- High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM
- Unpacking only: AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z.
- For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
- Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
- Self-extracting capability for 7z format
- Integration with Windows Shell
- Powerful File Manager
- Powerful command line version
- Plugin for FAR Manager
- Localizations for 87 languages

7-Zip works in Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2016 / 2012 / 2008 / 2003 / 2000 / NT.
p7zip - the port of the command line version of 7-Zip to Linux/Posix.
On 7-Zip's SourceForge Page you can find a forum, bug reports, and feature request systems.
Compression ratio
We compared 7-Zip with WinRAR 5.20.
FILE SETS: Mozilla Firefox 34.0.5 for Windows and Google Earth 6.2.2.6613 for Windows.
Archiver | Mozilla Firefox | Google Earth | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
65 files 85 280 391 bytes | 483 files 110 700 519 bytes | |||
Compressed size | Ratio | Compressed size | Ratio | |
7-Zip 9.35 -mx | 39 357 375 | 100% | 15 964 369 | 100% |
WinRAR 5.20 -m5 -s -ma5 -md128m | 41 789 543 | 106% | 17 035 432 | 107% |
Compression ratio results are very dependent upon the data used for the tests. Usually, 7-Zip compresses to 7z format 30-70% better than to zip format. And 7-Zip compresses to zip format 2-10% better than most of other zip compatible programs.
The Mac really doesn't have a lot of great utilities for creating file archives, but it does have one excellent option for unarchiving: the aptly named The Unarchiver. It integrates directly with the OS X Finder and supports practically any format you can imagine.
Note: The Unarchiver isn't actually capable of creating archives, but there's really no app on the Mac that does a great job of archiving and unarchiving. You really need two separate apps for the best experience. The Unarchiver provides that experience for unarchiving, but for creating compressed files you'll need something else. We'll discuss your options first thing in the Competition section of this post.
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The Unarchiver
Platform: Mac OS X
Price: Free
Download Page
Features
- Supports practically every compressed file format you can think of. See the full list here
- You can toggle which compressed file formats The Unarchiver will decompress and which ones it will ignore.
- Integrates with the Mac OS X Finder like it was a built-in feature.
- You can choose where it extracts files, or you can have it ask you every time.
- You can choose to keep or discard the archive once it has been decompressed.


Where It Excels
The Unarchiver doesn't do much, but that's kind of where it excels. It just unarchives practically any file you can throw at it. It's about as speedy as you can expect, and you can customize which file types it handles and which ones it doesn't. Using it feels like part of the OS X Finder, which is the other thing that makes it so great. Basically, using The Unarchiver is like adding a much broader range of supported compressed file formats to your Mac.
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Where It Falls Short
The Unarchiver doesn't do much, so it's lacking in that regard. Not only would the ability to actually compress files be very welcome—especially if it was through a contextual menu item—but the lack of features and control make it difficult to deal with an imperfect (and the occasional multi-part) archive. Aside from that, there's not much to complain about. It does what it says it's going to do, and it does it well the majority of the time.
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The Competition
Before we get into the competition (of which there is very little), let's talk about apps that can compress your files. The best ones are kind of pricey. Archiver is very pretty and will cost you $19. Behind it's good looks is a pretty good feature set, offering plenty of supported formats and even the ability to password-protect an archive. Alternatively you have an app called Compress Files. It weighs in at $15, so you'll save a little money. In exchange for those savings you lose a few supported file formats. For a little more than both apps ($20), you can get BetterZIP, which offers tons of features and supported formats. If you want a free utility that only supports ZIP files, use the one built-in to the Finder already. If you want a free app that can create zip files without including the annoying .DS_STORE files that OS X loves to include in its archives, try YemuZip.
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Best Zip Tool For Mac
As for the competition for The Unarchiver, there are a few apps worth noting. UnRarX is probably the best RAR decompressor on the Mac, but it suffers from a really unfriendly user interface. It's free, though, and is indispensable when dealing with RAR archives—specifically the problematic ones. For ZIP files, you can count on the Mac OS X Finder to handle those for you no problem. Most of the previously-mentioned archive creation apps can handle unarchiving files, too, but nothing is quite as good as The Unarchive so chances are you'll prefer to use two apps—one for archiving and one for unarchiving—to get the job done.
Best Free Zip Tool For Mac
UPDATE: @dumbinacan sent me a link to Keka, which I was not aware of, and it's pretty great. It archives and unarchives, costs nothing, and has a contextual menu add-on so you can use it directly in the Finder.
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ANOTHER UPDATE: A lot of user suggestions have been coming in so I thought I'd start a list of some popular user alternatives.
- Entropy, $19, via @rainierrr
- iPack, $2, via @artiste212
Best Free Zip Tool For Mac
Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories.
Best Zip Tool For Mac
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