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mac equiv to WinZip/WinRAR

2

2ms

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 22, 2002
444
71
What widely available software, that is free to download and extremely easy to use, is available for packaging/archiving files on Mac?

I'm looking for something analogous to WinRar or Winzip so I can package a bunch of files together into one and then email to a completely unsavvy mac user and have them be able to extract the files with ease.
 
Why not just make a folder on the desktop, right click, or ctrl + click and create an archive of the folder. It will zip and you can send. Opening of a zip archive is just a double click on a mac.
 
BiTurboMunkie said:
stuffit
Click to expand...

Please don't use StuffIt. If you must use something like StuffIt, I recommend The Unarchiver.

HOWEVER, like TPAM said, the easiest way is to highlight all the files you need to zip up, right-click (or ctrl click), and "Create Archive..." That creates .zip file that all OSes understand and can unpackage.
 
I want to send a file that doesn't require the recipient to install any software. Is there nothing native to OSX?

I want the functionality of winzip, stuffit, winrar, tar, gzip, etc, however I want the person getting file to be able to open file I send them without having to go install new software.
 
As other people have posted... use zip. It's built into OSX and Windows AND Linux.
 
Winzip isn't built into my WinXP! I understand a trial version can be downloaded for free, but it's not on my Windows machine natively. For example, when I right click on file(s), no option for zipping appears in menu.

Is it absolutely certain that OSX has it built in native?
 
Win Zip™® isn't built into Windows, if you catch my drift, but .zip archiving and unpacking certainly is. Haven't you ever just clicked on a folder with the little clamp icon on it, to find the contents presented in a window?

OS X has archiving built in, it uses native BSD commands to zip and unzip files.
 
thewhitehart said:
Win Zip™® isn't built into Windows, if you catch my drift, but .zip archiving and unpacking certainly is. Haven't you ever just clicked on a folder with the little clamp icon on it, to find the contents presented in a window?
Click to expand...

Of course we can keep debating it pointlessly, but just in case anyone wants to try it... I'm on a Windows Server 2003 client at the mo', but I'm pretty sure this works in XP as well:

Select a group of files. Right click, select send to -> compressed (zipped) folder. Then you see a folder with the zipper on it, as mentioned. Double clicking this folder allows you to navigate into it (which I would think is a neat idea until I shudder and think about where and with what protection Windows is storing the temp files involved ;) ). That is a zip file.
 
mkrishnan said:
<snip>(which I would think is a neat idea until I shudder and think about where and with what protection Windows is storing the temp files involved ;) ). That is a zip file.
Click to expand...

Windows\temp unprotected of course :D

Then again in windows you can encrypt single folders if you want, if encryption is what you are after.

As for the person looking for compression. Winzip is a program which allows you to use the zip compression routine. WinRar is a program which allows you to use the rar AND zip compression routines. 7-Zip gives you 7-zip and normal zip compression. Do you see a trend here? Lots of different programs giving the same required functionality?

Well guess what? Windows (XP+) can handle zip files too. Amazingly microsoft found a way to integrate zip compression without using winzip. Mainly because zip compression doesn't actually need winzip, just the zip compression routine, but why worry about these trivial details.

Amazingly too, i mean these programmers must be total geniuses, Apple added zip functionality to Mac OSX and some other superbly bright programmers added zip to linux.

It's as if they said, "hey wait! zip compression was out before winzip was available! Maybe we too can be as smart as these winzip people and make a program which does the same".
 
I'm well familiar with gzip the free software compression utility that's practically standard for any form of Unix including BSD. And, ever since I tried the first beta of OS X, opened a term, and typed "vi helloworld" I've been conscious of OS X's retention of the standard Unix utilities.

However, gzip is not the same as zip. I know nothing about Windows machines other than that I am having to use one right now for work, and that winzip is not freeware, and that I have been unable to open zip files without downloading winzip in the past. So sorry if I thought "winzip compression" wasn't open the way 99% of other software you have to pay for on windows is.

And I guess I have to reiterate (to all you you keep repeating to just right-click on file(s)) what I wrote in a post above that that is not working on this machine. There is no option to create a zip in the menu. Additionally, when I click on a zip file the little windows doesn't know what to open it with and I see nothing in the menu of apps it pulls up.

Anyway, I got what I needed know so I'm good ;)
 
The entry in the context menu doesn't contain the word ZIP at all.

If you could take a picture of your contextual menu, that would be hugely helpful to me, because as it stands, I have never seen a copy of OS X that doesn't have the "Create Archive..." entry in the right-click contextual menu.
 
In windows

Right click->Send to-> Compressed folder.

XP+: Zip built in
winzip: Not free but you can use it for as long as you want
7-Zip: Free
unzip.exe: (command line based) free but hard to use.

95-98-2000 = no zip built in

If you are using windows XP and you open a zip file and it doesn't know what to do with it then someone has installed and removed a zip program (ie winzip).

In this case, select the zip file, hold shift and right click, open with->Compressed (zipped) folders.

If that doesn't work then you'll have to enable zip again.

Start/run/ regsvr32 %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll

Also be nice to your fellow forum members. Maybe if you had made your problem more clear rather than repeating yourself over and over people might have helped more rather than just been sarcastic.

Also it would have helped if at one point you told us what version of windows you are using.
 
Zip format is going down anyway,
there is a software called compress (freeware), can do the compression with output in the formats of tar, dmg, zip, etc, unfortunately, it won't add anything to your context menu.
 
clevin said:
Zip format is going down anyway,
there is a software called compress (freeware), can do the compression with output in the formats of tar, dmg, zip, etc, unfortunately, it won't add anything to your context menu.
Click to expand...
What makes you think Zip is going away? I still see tons of Windows stuff and cross-platform stuff (like PHP scripts) distributed as Zip files.
 
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