Browse archives like folders. Preview files without extracting. Drag out only the ones you need.
$ brew install --cask macpackerApp Store updates may lag a few days behind direct downloads due to Apple review.
MacPacker is a free, open-source archive manager for macOS. Unlike Archive Utility — the built-in macOS tool that unpacks everything at once into a new folder — MacPacker lets you open an archive and browse its contents like a Finder window, seeing folders, file names, and sizes without extracting anything. You can preview individual files with Quick Look, drill straight into nested archives (archives stored inside other archives), and drag out just the one file you need instead of unpacking gigabytes. ZIP archives can even be edited and re-saved in place. Whether you're a developer pulling a single file out of a build artifact or just want to peek inside a download before unpacking it, MacPacker turns a clumsy multi-step chore into one drag. It supports 41 formats — including ZIP, RAR, 7z, TAR, DMG, and ISO — runs natively on Apple Silicon (macOS 14 and later), and is released under the GPL-3.0 license.
Browse the full contents of any archive without extracting a single byte.
Archives inside archives? Drill in seamlessly — no intermediate extractions.
Drag out exactly the files you need. No more 2 GB extractions for one config file.
Modify and re-save ZIP archives in place. Editing for more formats is on the way.
Supported Formats
Open source. GPL-3.0. Built in the open — inspect, fork, contribute.
View on GitHubTranslations. Available in 13 languages. Translations are managed on POEditor — anyone can sign up and help.
Changelog
Coming next › Support for deletion of files / folders from .zip archives
Edit existing zip archives: add or delete files and save · Compress files and folders to zip straight from Finder · Open an archive and jump straight to a file inside it with launch parameters · Folders now stay on top by default when opening an archive
"Extract archive" produced no files for zip/7z archives · Apps extracted from ZIP archives with the 7-Zip engine wouldn't launch because symbolic links and file permissions were lost
Hold ⌥ while dropping an archive to open it in a new window
FAQ
Yes. MacPacker is completely free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license. There are no paid tiers, subscriptions, accounts, or in-app purchases — and no ads or tracking.
MacPacker opens 41 archive and disk-image formats, including ZIP, RAR, 7z, TAR (and tar.gz, tar.xz, tar.bz2), DMG, ISO, CAB, and more. ZIP archives can also be edited and re-saved in place.
Yes. MacPacker is a native Apple Silicon app built with Swift and SwiftUI, and runs on macOS 14 (Sonoma) and later on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs.
Archive Utility extracts an entire archive at once into a new folder. MacPacker lets you browse and preview an archive's contents first, open nested archives directly, and drag out only the files you need — without unpacking the whole thing.
Install it from the Mac App Store, with Homebrew (brew install --cask macpacker), or by downloading the .dmg or .zip directly from the site. Every option is free.
The Unarchiver is an extraction tool: double-click an archive and it unpacks everything into a folder. MacPacker is an archive browser — it opens the archive like a Finder window, so you can preview files with Quick Look, step into nested archives, and drag out only the files you need. If you often want one file out of a big archive rather than all of it, that's the difference.
Keka focuses on creating and extracting archives with strong compression options. MacPacker focuses on looking inside archives before anything is extracted: browse contents, preview files, navigate nested archives, and pull out individual files. Both are open source — they solve different halves of the problem.
Yes. MacPacker is fully open source under GPL-3.0, so anyone can audit the code on GitHub, and it's distributed through the Mac App Store, Homebrew, and signed, notarized builds. It collects no data — archives never leave your Mac.
MacPacker is built around browsing and extracting. It can already edit existing ZIP archives and re-save them in place, and more write support is being developed in the open on GitHub.