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Way to inspect .zip contents without decompressing?

jent

jent

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 31, 2010
924
778
I have a 2.9GB ZIP archive on my iDisk, which is very slow. I have no clue for the life of me what the file is, and I was wondering if there's a way to "inspect" it without fully downloading it, just so I can see the resulting folder names and filenames contained in the ZIP file to decide whether or not I want it. Thanks!
 
jent said:
I have a 2.9GB ZIP archive on my iDisk, which is very slow. I have no clue for the life of me what the file is, and I was wondering if there's a way to "inspect" it without fully downloading it, just so I can see the resulting folder names and filenames contained in the ZIP file to decide whether or not I want it. Thanks!
Click to expand...

2.9GB is a huge zip file and any errors during download could render the whole thing inaccessible. On OSX, there is really no way that I know of to examine a zip file without uncompressing it. I have used the OS and I have used stuffit. Both tend to expand the zip file rather than letting you examine it like a Windows program like Winzip might do. Perhaps you can find some freeware on Macupdate, possibly even winzip (shareware) that might allow you to view the contents of the file without automatically expanding the whole thing.

I think the directory is at the beginning of the zip file so the whole thing doesn't have to be transferred to view its contents.

Still I'm forced to wonder why you don't simply download the file in the first place? With Mobileme coming to an end, how is finding out this late that there is something inside you want preferable to having it safely downloaded just in case?
 
My internet connection isn't very fast and a lot of people in the house share the single wifi network, so it would be hard to get a steady stream of download speed for so long. In precious attempts the iDisk has failed the transfer too.
 
jent said:
My internet connection isn't very fast and a lot of people in the house share the single wifi network, so it would be hard to get a steady stream of download speed for so long. In precious attempts the iDisk has failed the transfer too.
Click to expand...
I know some have used download managers for situations like yours. They will manage the download process, resuming if the download is interrupted, so you don't have to start all over again. You might try searching this forum for "download manager" or search Google for "download manager Mac".
 
I tried downloading it and it failed every time; it's corrupted, so I'll forget about trying to know what was in it.
 
You can try the command line/Terminal.

The command "unzip -l" followed by the file directory might be able to tell you what's inside.
 
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