Apple could take a lesson or two from Microsoft’s Windows when it comes to handling Zip archives on a Mac.
There’s no two ways about it. Apple’s Archive tools, free though it may be, is anemic at best. What would make OS X’s Zip archive better is to make it behave the same way Zipster behaves which is much like the way Windows handles archives.
Zip Archives As Folders
Archives are just easier on Windows than on a Mac. Sure, we Mac users can create Zip archives quickly and easily.
Select a few files and folders in the Finder, right-click, select Compress from the menu. Voila! A Zip archive.
Double-click the archive and it uncompresses, opening up whatever has been stuffed inside.
Windows users, on the other hand, can browse Zip archives, copy files in and out of the archive, and don’t need a separate utility. The Mac can’t do that.
Zipster is the Mac app that can.
With Zipster installed on your Mac Zip archives are treated as if they were merely another folder in the Finder. That means you can see what’s inside the archive without opening it up first, and copy files in and move them out of an archive, too.
Zipster is even better than Windows, though. While using an app on your Mac, you can open files that are inside a Zip archive (and same them to the same archive). Zipster is so fast that it writes and compresses and decompresses in the background so you don’t have to worry about what it’s doing that you can’t see.
And, when you create a Zip archive it gets rid of those silly .DS_Store files your Mac creates that freak out Windows users when they open the archive you sent. Zipster works with a number of different archive formats, but the main benefit is auto opening the Mac’s Zip archives and treating them just like a folder. In real time. Nicely done and worth the extra coin if you deal in archives at all.
