MacPacker - Open Source Archive Manager for macOS

[sarensw]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to introduce MacPacker, an open-source archive manager for macOS that I've been building since 2023.

It originally started as a small archive preview tool for tar.lz4 files with support for nested archives because that was exactly what I needed at the time. Three years later, it has grown into a full archive manager supporting more than 40 archive formats. You can browse archives without extracting them first, inspect nested archives, and extract individual files or entire folders.

The reason I'm posting today is that MacPacker has reached an important milestone. With yesterday's v0.18 release, it can now create and edit ZIP archives. ZIP is the first supported editable format, with more planned in future releases.

MacPacker is available through several channels:

• GitHub Releases: https://github.com/sarensw/macpacker/releases
• Direct download: https://macpacker.app
• Homebrew:

  brew install --cask macpacker

• Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/macpacker-unzip-extract/id6473273874?l=en-GB&mt=12

The project is fully open source, and I'm always interested in feedback, feature requests, and bug reports.

 

[!!!]

The .. is a neat touch for terminal folks, but I think it would be better and more Mac-native to have a tree structure, like Finder's list mode.

 

[sarensw]

The .. is a neat touch for terminal folks, but I think it would be better and more Mac-native to have a tree structure, like Finder's list mode.

Agreed. The quick look integration already uses a tree. I just need to port this to the main window. The challenge with trees are nested archives (not supported in quick look). But I’ll figure it out.

 

[startergo]

Excellent! Have you thought about including parallels format? I see you included vdi · vhd · vhdx · vmdk but not parallels format.

 

[sarensw]

Excellent! Have you thought about including parallels format? I see you included vdi · vhd · vhdx · vmdk but not parallels format.

Good point. This wasn't on my radar yet, but surely makes more sense than the VMWare ones. Those got included because of a users request. I'll have to look at how to support parallels. And especially automated testing this will be a challenge.

 

[bogdanw]

Possible bug: Text files directly opened from a password protected zip file appear empty. MacPacker v0.18.0 on macOS Sequoia 15.7.7 (24G720)

 

[sarensw]

Possible bug: Text files directly opened from a password protected zip file appear empty. MacPacker v0.18.0 on macOS Sequoia 15.7.7 (24G720)

Thanks for raising this. I have created a bug and will look at this asap. https://github.com/sarensw/MacPacker/issues/138

 

[bogdanw]

Other possible bugs:
- MacPacker is overwriting extracted files without warning.

- selecting “Icon and text” in the Toolbar does not persist.

- zip archive appears as empty, but is extracted correctly.
I’ve attached the archive (www.subs.ro_$-1972.zip), downloaded from https://subs.ro/subtitrare/descarca/$-1972/130235
I presumed that the $ symbol in the name might be the cause, but renaming the archive to “test.zip” has no effect.

 

[sarensw]

@bogdanw thanks for that.

MacPacker is overwriting extracted files without warning

This is a known limitation right now. But I have introduced the progress window lately, this should allow me to add some kind of decisions there as well (similar ot TotalCommander maybe). I'll check that > https://github.com/sarensw/MacPacker/issues/140

selecting “Icon and text” in the Toolbar does not persist

Issue created: https://github.com/sarensw/MacPacker/issues/141

zip archive appears as empty, but is extracted correctly

I tried a few other downloads from subs.ro and had no issues to view the content. I couldn't find anything that is titled $-1972, though. Sorry for not downloading your attached zip here. I've been scammed too often to not be cautious anymore.