Guide
How to create and open ZIP files on a Mac
macOS has compression built in, and it takes two clicks in Finder. But a Mac leaves a few traces in the archive that recipients on Windows notice straight away — here is both the procedure and the tidying up.
How to create a ZIP file
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1
Select the files in Finder. Hold Command while clicking to choose several, or Command + A for everything in the folder.
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Right-click the selection — or hold Control and click — and choose «Compress». If you selected more than one, it says «Compress N Items».
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The archive lands in the same folder. A single file keeps its name with .zip after it. Several files become «Archive.zip», which you press Enter on to rename.
How to open a ZIP file
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Double-click the archive. Archive Utility starts by itself and extracts immediately — you are not asked where.
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The contents land in a new folder right next to the archive, with the same name. The ZIP file itself stays behind, so remember to clear it away yourself.
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To see what is inside before extracting, select the archive and press the space bar. Quick Look lists the files without writing anything to disk.
A Mac leaves __MACOSX and .DS_Store behind
Archive Utility packs Apple’s own metadata along with your files. The result is a hidden folder called __MACOSX, and a .DS_Store file for every folder you included. On another Mac they are invisible, so you never notice them yourself.
On Windows it is different. There they appear as ordinary folders and files, and the recipient is left with an archive that looks messy. They are harmless and can be deleted without further thought — but it is polite to mention them in advance.
Passwords require the Terminal
Finder has no password function at all. To lock an archive on a Mac you have to go into the Terminal and type zip -e archive.zip file.txt, whereupon you are asked for the password twice.
Two things are worth knowing before you do. The method uses the old ZipCrypto encryption, which is considered weak. And Windows’ File Explorer cannot open password-protected archives anyway, so the recipient needs 7-Zip or similar.
Archive Utility does not ask about anything
Where Windows lets you browse into a ZIP file and see the contents before you decide, macOS extracts everything at once. If the archive is large, or holds hundreds of files, you suddenly have hundreds of files in the folder.
Quick Look with the space bar is therefore worth getting used to. It shows the whole file list without extracting a single file.
Or do it straight in the browser
The tools here on Zipfile run on your own machine, in Safari as well as in Chrome. The files are not uploaded anywhere, and you avoid both the Terminal and __MACOSX folders.
Questions and answers
How do I get rid of the __MACOSX folder?
The simplest way is to delete it after the archive is made: open the ZIP file on a Windows machine and remove the folder there, or build the archive with a tool that does not include Apple metadata in the first place. The tool here on Zipfile writes only the files you chose, and nothing else.
Why does my Mac say the archive is damaged?
Usually because the download was interrupted, or because the archive uses a feature Archive Utility does not support — for example password protection or a split archive. Try downloading it again first. If that does not help, open the archive with The Unarchiver or Keka, which handle more.
Can a Mac open RAR and 7z files?
Not with Archive Utility. macOS handles ZIP, TAR and GZIP by itself, but RAR and 7z require a separate program. The Unarchiver and Keka are both free and cover all the common formats.
Can I make a ZIP file that Windows reads correctly?
Yes, and the file names matter most. macOS stores accented letters in a slightly different way from Windows, so a letter can come out split into two characters on the other side. If you stick to a–z in file names, it always works. The tool here writes the names as UTF-8 and marks them, so both systems read them the same way.
How large can an archive be?
macOS supports ZIP64, so the 4 GB limit from the original format no longer applies. In practice free disk space decides. The tools here also handle archives over 4 GB.