How to Compress and Extract Files on Mac

macOS can create and open ZIP files without any extra software. Everything beyond that — 7z, RAR, password-protected archives, split volumes — needs a third-party tool, and the built-in one gives no indication that it has failed to handle a format.

What macOS Handles Natively

Right-click a file or folder and choose Compress to create a ZIP. Double-click a ZIP, tar, gzip or bzip2 archive to extract it with Archive Utility.

From Terminal, the same operations are available and more predictable:

zip -r archive.zip folder/
unzip archive.zip -d destination/
tar -czf archive.tar.gz folder/

The -r matters — without it, zip archives the folder entry and not its contents, which produces an archive that extracts to nothing.

What It Cannot Do

• RAR — no decoder ships with macOS
• 7z — same
• Password-protected archives — Archive Utility cannot create one and cannot open most of them
• Split or multi-volume archives
• Editing an existing archive — you extract, change, and re-create

The Third-Party Options

Keka is the general-purpose choice: it creates and extracts ZIP, 7z, tar, gzip and several others, and it can produce password-protected archives with AES encryption. It is the tool that replaces Archive Utility rather than sitting next to it.

The Unarchiver does one half of the job — it opens formats macOS refuses, including RAR and older formats. It cannot create archives, which makes it a complement rather than a replacement.

BetterZip is the option when you need to work inside an archive: open it, remove one file, add another, save, without extracting the whole thing to disk first. That matters for large archives and for anyone handling packaged software.

Our guide to Mac archive utilities compares the category in more detail.

Making an Archive Someone Else Can Open

The failure mode for archives is not corruption, it is incompatibility. Three habits prevent most of it:

Use ZIP unless there is a reason not to. Every platform opens ZIP. A 7z saves a little space and costs the recipient a download.

Avoid password protection unless you can send the password separately. An encrypted archive with the password in the same email is not protected, and one with a forgotten password is data you have destroyed.

Test before sending. Extract your own archive to a different folder and open a file from it. An archive that fails at the recipient is a re-send and an apology.

When the Archive Is Bigger Than Expected

If an archive of photos or video barely shrinks, that is expected — those formats are already compressed. If an archive of documents is unexpectedly large, the cause is usually a hidden folder inside the one you selected: .git, node_modules, or a cache directory. Check the size of what you are about to compress before you compress it.