BetterZip is an application that comes as an alternative to using Mac's Archive Utility for managing your compressed data. This program provides you with a quick and simple solution for creating, editing, and extracting various types of archive files.
The utility works with formats like ZIP, XAR, 7-ZIP, TAR, RAR, and many others. You can use this program to compress multiple files into a single archive. It might prove to be of good use if you need to attach large files to an email or reclaim disk space on your Mac.
Another useful advantage is that the program lets you edit archive files without decompressing them. For example, you can import an archive, delete one of the stored files, all without extracting the compressed file in the process.
What's more, you can set BetterZip as a default Mac utility for handling archive files and use the built-in search tool to immediately find files in the imported archives.
You can find cheaper solutions for managing your archive files, whether it's Mac's default tool or other third-party programs. Yet, they aren't as feature-rich as BetterZip but provide you with great results. So, if you're looking for an efficient and intuitive archive manager, BetterZip might be the solution for you.
v4.0 [May 24, 2017]
- The new Finder extension puts all your presets in the Finder’s toolbar. Select some files in Finder, click the BetterZip button and choose one of your presets from the drop-down menu to create an archive with these files. Of course, you can also invoke any of your extraction presets on selected archives.
- BetterZip 4 lets you define as many services as you like instead of the preconfigured two that prior versions offered. Use the tools menu in the preset configuration to add a service for the preset with a name of your choosing.
- BetterZip 4 also comes with Automator actions for extracting and compressing as part of a workflow.
- And BetterZip 4 interacts nicely with other apps like Alfred, LaunchBar, and DropZone.
- All this is made possible by enhanced AppleScript support.
- In the new version you can rename, copy, move, and delete archives, open an archive in a new window or a new tab, display and treat multi-volume archives as one item. You can also choose to show all files in the sidebar instead of only archives. Also, Finder labels.
- Drop files on the new Drop Bar with drop areas for your favorite presets to instantly compress or extract them.
- Drill into folders by double-clicking them like in Finder. A folder path is displayed above the archive contents which gives you easy navigation to all parent folders and allows you to drop items directly into them.
- When modifying an archive that currently has no Mac specific stuff (metadata, Finder settings, etc.) in it you can now keep all Mac stuff out, add Mac stuff to the archive, or be asked every time what you want to do. Set your preferred option on the General tab of the BetterZip preferences.
- If you install the external rar command line tool, BetterZip 4 can try to repair damaged archives when opening or extracting them. Recovery volumes are now treated like other parts of a multi-volume rar archives.
- Instead of moving extracted archives to the trash after successful extraction, BetterZip can now move them to any folder.
- Open new formats thanks to XADArchive.framework: PDF – extract bitmap images from PDF files. SWF – extract images and music from Flash files. Both formats are, of course, not primarily archives and are treated as normal files. You can open them as archives by holding down the alt/option key while opening them. Or you can remove them from the blacklist in the preferences (on the “File Types“ tab).
- Added zipx and sitx format support.
- Option to display folders above files (menu View > Sort Folders Above Files).
- You can now specify in save presets whether you want to create individual archives when compressing through the operations queue. It’s no longer a global setting. Together with the new dynamic services this opens some very cool possibilities.
- Another global option has been moved into the preset: When compressing one folder through the operations queue, don't include the folder itself, but add only its contents in the root of the archive. Together with the option to create individual archives, you can now select a number of folders and compress them through a BetterZip service into individual archives that each don’t include the folders themselves.
- Save presets can now add comments to archives.
- Empty windows now show a drop area for files.
- The password manager can now import a list of passwords (one password per line).
- The preview sidebar can now display more file types by using Quick Look.
- Choose a preset from inside the save/open panel and its settings will be loaded.
- The previously “hidden” settings were moved into the preferences window.
- The preferences window can now be resized.
- Added xip and pkg as recognized archive filename extensions. (Not all pkg formats are supported, only xar based.).
- Notifications now include whether archive extraction, creation, and tests succeeded or failed.
- Tar based archives are now extracted faster when using the queue.
- If an archive disappears (e.g., when it is deleted or the disk it resides on is ejected), you will now get a warning with the option to close the window.
