03 Jul How to Open a Zip File on Mac

Zip files work as a compressed package of multiple files/folders/single item in it. You can usually see them when downloading files and folders online. If you have got a zip file or created one, you can open it on Mac by following this tutorial we have brought for you.

Zip files make it easy for the sender to compress heavy and many files/folders into one folder. This folder can be extracted by various ways. In this post, we will mention two key ways, i.e. using Finder and using Terminal to extract your Zip folder.

Macs come with an in-built Archive Utility tool to allow you to extract files or folders from a zip archive.

How to Extract a Zip File on Mac – Using Finder

1. Head to Finder on your Mac
2. Navigate the Zip archive file (you can search for the .zip extension)
3. Double-click the file to start extraction of its contents
4. Once it is done, you will see the unzipped contents in the same folder

[Note: If the zip file is protected with a password, you need the password to unzip it.]

That’s it! Extracting files and folders from a zip archive folder on the Mac is very easy.

How to Extract a Zip File on Mac – Using Terminal

You can unzip a zipped file in Terminal by using the ‘unzip’ command on the file. Here’s how:

To extract zipped file:

abc@xyz :~ $ unzip source_code.zip

To extract a zipped file on your preferred location:

abc@xyz :~ $ unzip -q source_code.zip -d ./development

The list of the extracted files and folders will be shown.

If the file you are unzipping has a password on it, you can still open it by fetching its password. Here’s the way:

abc@xyz: ~$ unzip -q sourcecods.zip

[sourcecode.zip] work/archive/caps.c password:

With this method, you can extract the password and extract the zipped file contents.