Select Open to unzip your file if Archive Utility is set as your default.

Alternatively, you can right-click on the zipped folder.

Right-click the zipped file and open it with Archive Utility

Click appropriate icons to access the extracted files.

This will prompt the Archive Utility tool to unzip the files in the same folder the zipped file is in.

Double-click on the zipped file to unzip any zipped file on your Mac.

Let's look at these ways closely: Double click the zipped file There are three ways to unzip files on Mac: you can double-click on the zipped file, right-click and click open with Archive Utility or use third-party software. Spammers also use ZIP files as phishing bait, where they camouflage themselves as a bank, business partner, friend, or employer, and instruct the recipient to take specific action.

As much as a Mac has a built-in defense mechanism, attackers use ZIP archives to surpass the defense, infect the computer and collect information about the system. The ability to conceal content is what makes ZIP files a hacker's best friend. But they can potentially be - when cybercriminals use them to infiltrate Mac systems. Unless a Mac user uses third-party software, they cannot tell what's inside the zipped folder without opening the file. Usually, ZIP files don't display their content. Unfortunately, cybercriminals also use ZIP files to advance their course. These two features make the ZIP file format one of the most common ways people share files and collections of files online. For those common file types, such as image files, PDF documents, Pages files, you can select the file, then press the Space bar on your keyboard to preview the file content without uncompressing the zip archive.ZIP file bundles multiple files into a single container file and also compresses them. You can even click to select a file to open it with compatible apps installed on your computer. You can then see the full list of all the archives contents, including file name, file size, modification date and time, file types. Get this free zip/unzip app for Mac and install it on your computer.įind the zip archive in Finder, right click on it, choose Open with > eZip from the contextual menu to open the zip archive on Mac without unzipping it. Today, we will show you how the same zip utility can help us open, preview content of zip files on Mac without unzipping them? In a related article, we demonstrated how you can add password to protect Zip files on Mac using a third-party free zip utility.

For example, you can’t encrypt files, preview content of zip files. The stock compress/decompress utilities on Mac however is limited to very basic tasks.

Mac comes with the unarchive app you can use to unzip or decompress zip archive.

How to open zips on mac