How To Unzip File On Macbook
Mac Finder isn’t always capable of reading the contents of a package file, which requires users to rely instead on the command line to view what’s inside. Additionally packages can sometimes become corrupt or you might need to extract a single file from a package for some other reason. This site contains user submitted content, comments and opinions and is for informational purposes only. Apple may provide or recommend responses as a possible solution based on the information provided; every potential issue may involve several factors not detailed in the conversations captured in an electronic forum and Apple can therefore provide no guarantee as to the.
Terminal
Hey
Terminal, the wonder app, can do pretty much anything. This post is going to show you how you can unzip files using Terminal. I will also show you how you can can combine commands to download and unzip files really quickly. Its really simple to complete. You may want to use Terminal since you can access extra options which you may normally be hidden away from you.
The first step is to open Terminal. Use the “cd” command to change the directory to the location where you want to unzip the zip file. For example you can use:
cd ./Desktop
The next step is to invoke the unzip command. Type the following into Terminal. This assumes you have a zip file ready to unzip.
unzip file.zip
This will unzip you file into you desktop location. If you want to change this location you can type the following.
unzip file.zip -d ~/another/folder
You can also remove all of the text that Terminal will output when you run the command by adding a modifier/option to the front of the syntax.
unzip -q file.zip
Optionally you can also add more information by adding a verbose option. This will show you all of the details of the file you unzip.
unzip -v file.zip
You can combine this command with other command so you can download and unzip a file automatically. For example if you have wget installed you can type in Terminal.
cd ~/download;wget http://www.example.com/file/zip;unzip file.zip
How To Unzip A Download
The different commands are separated by a semi-colon (;). The previous command will change your directory to your downloads folder. It will then grab the zip file from your website and unzip the file to your location.
The one problem with unzip command is that it creates a an extra folder called “__MACOSX” this folder would normally be hidden as it stores extra data that you don’t need to see. You can easily get rid of this by combining the delete command with the unzip command.
unzip file.zip;rm -rf __MACOSX
That will unzip the file and then delete this extra folder. You can of course combine this with the download command previously.
cd ~/download;wget http://www.example.com/file/zip;unzip file.zip;rm -rf __MACOSX
You could even take this further by moving files and folders although that would be out of the scope of this article. How quick do you reckon it would be to type that command compared to downloading a zip folder normally and then normally extracting it. You do have to type more, but it is a lot less clicking and searching in Finder.
If you want to take your skills with Terminal a bit further I recommend you check out the Terminal Category on this site. If you fancy reading a book there is a couple on Amazon that I regularly see mentioned and recommend, O’reilly Unix Geeks and Unix Under the Hood both are designed for Mac OS X and take Terminal further.
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Where To Next?
How to compress files
- Open the Files app, then choose a location like On My iPhone or iCloud Drive.
- Tap Select, then choose one or more files.
- Tap the more button in the lower right.
- Tap Compress.
- If you selected one file, a ZIP file with the same filename saves to that folder. If you selected multiple files, a ZIP archive named Archive.zip saves to that folder. To change its name, touch and hold on the ZIP archive, then select Rename.
How to uncompress a ZIP file
- Open the Files app, then find the ZIP file or archive you want to uncompress.
- Tap the ZIP file or archive.
- A folder is created containing the files. To change its name, touch and hold on the folder, then tap Rename.
Do more with ZIP files
If you need to share a large file or multiple files, a compressed file takes up less storage space and can be sent faster because of its smaller file size.
To share a ZIP file or archive from the Files app, touch and hold on the ZIP file or archive, then tap the share button .
If you receive a ZIP file or archive in Mail, you can also preview its contents without downloading it. Just select the ZIP file or archive, then choose Preview Content. Swipe to see previews of each file included in the ZIP archive.
Mac Zip Archive
Need more help?
How To Unzip File On Macbook
- Make sure you're using iOS 11 or later or iPadOS on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.
- See how to use the Files app.
- If a file is too large to send as a regular attachment, you can also try using Mail Drop.
- Want to share multiple files with friends or colleagues? Try sharing a folder in iCloud Drive.