Archive Utility

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This article is about the specific Mac OS built-in utility. For archive utilities in general, see File archiver.
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Archive Utility
Archive Utility
Developer(s) Apple Inc.
Stable release 10.8.2 (September 19, 2012; 8 months ago (2012-09-19)) [±]
Preview release None [±]
Operating system Mac OS X
Type File archiver
Website http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Archive Utility (BOMArchiveHelper until Mac OS X 10.5) is the default archive file handler in Mac OS X. It is usually invoked automatically when opening a file in one of its supported formats. It can be used to create compressed ZIP archives by choosing "Create archive of 'file'" (Leopard: "Compress") in the Finder's File or contextual menu. It is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/Archive Utility.app in 10.5 and later, and /System/Library/CoreServices/BOMArchiveHelper.app in 10.4. Prior to Archive Utility's inclusion in Mac OS X v10.3, beginning with Mac OS 7.6, Apple bundled the freeware StuffIt Expander with the operating system.

Invoking Archive Utility manually shows a minimal GUI letting the user change Archive Utility preferences or choose files to compress or uncompress. BOMArchiveHelper 10.4.11 cannot be manually invoked. It may be inferred that prior to 10.5, BOMArchiveHelper could not be manually invoked.

BOM is an abbreviation of Bill of Materials. Bill of Materials files or .bom files are used by the Mac OS X Installer program to document where files in an installer bundle are installed, what their file permissions should be, and other file metadata. Thus, a Bill of Materials is read by the Installer, and Archive Utility helps it by extracting the files specified in the BOM.

Supported formats

Writing and creating support:

  • ZIP (.zip)—password-protected ZIP archives are not supported
  • cpio (regular archive option)
  • cpgz (compressed archive option)

Reading and extracting support: (It works as a front-end for command-line programs that are part of Mac OS X.)

  • bzip2 (.bz, .bz2)
  • cbz (comic book zip)
  • cpgz (cpio gziped)
  • cpio (.cpio)
  • gz (.gzip, .gz)
  • tar (.tar)
  • tgz (tar gziped)
  • tbz, tbz2 (tar bziped)
  • jar (Java Archive)
  • compress (.Z)
  • uuencode
  • ZIP (.zip)—password-protected ZIP archives are not supported. It can not handle streamed ZIP content as well as written by ZIP version > 2.0. Ensure your ZIP file is at least 2.0 compliant or uncompressed content looks like corrupt all the time.

See also

External links
Archivers with
compression
(comparison)
Free software
Freeware
Commercial
Lossless data
compression*
Free software
Audio
compression
(comparison)
Lossy
Lossless
Video
compression
(comparison)
Lossy
MPEG-4 ASP
H.264 /
MPEG-4 AVC
Others
Lossless
Versions
Applications
Discontinued
Utilities
Discontinued
Technology and user interface
Discontinued
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