How to Open a ZIP File Without Extracting It on a Mac

You downloaded a ZIP and only want to see what's inside, or take out one file. On a Mac, double-clicking it does more than that: the Archive Utility unpacks the whole thing into a new folder next to the archive. Do that a few times in Downloads and you end up with a ZIP, a folder with the same name, and no idea which one you actually need.

The short answer: the Finder can't open a ZIP like a folder, but you have two good ways to look inside without unpacking anything next to it. In Terminal, unzip -l lists the contents in a second. In a file manager such as Folia Files, a ZIP opens in a pane like a folder, read-only, and you copy out only what you need.

What happens when you double-click a ZIP in the Finder

The Finder hands the file to the Archive Utility, which extracts everything into a folder beside the archive. That is fine when you want all of it. It is less fine when:

• the archive is large and you need one document from it;
• you want to check what a download contains before unpacking it;
• the archive holds hundreds of files and you only want to compare it with a folder you already have.

The Finder has no view that browses a ZIP's contents in place, so you need another tool for that.

List a ZIP's contents in Terminal

macOS includes the unzip and zipinfo commands. Open Terminal, type cd and a space, drag the folder that holds the archive onto the window, press ↩, then:

• unzip -l Atlas.zip lists every file with its size and date, and the total at the end;
• zipinfo -1 Atlas.zip prints the paths only, one per line, which is handy to search with grep;
• tar -tf archive.tar.gz does the same for TAR archives (the tar of macOS also reads ZIP files).

To take out a single file without unpacking the rest, name it after the archive: unzip Atlas.zip "Atlas/README.md" -d ~/Desktop puts only that file (in its folder) on the Desktop. And unzip -p Atlas.zip "Atlas/README.md" prints a text file's contents straight into Terminal, without writing anything to the disk.

This works everywhere and costs nothing, but you need to type exact paths, and you see a list rather than the files themselves.

Browse a ZIP like a folder in Folia Files

Folia Files is a file manager for the Mac. When you double-click a ZIP in one of its panes, the archive opens in that pane like any folder: list, columns, icons or gallery view, with sorting, search and previews. The path bar shows where you are, for example Downloads › Atlas.zip, and Enclosing Folder at the top of the archive takes you back to Downloads with the ZIP selected.

The same works for the other common formats: 7z, RAR, TAR (including .tar.gz) and ISO images. You can also right-click an archive and choose Browse Archive, or Extract Here when you do want everything unpacked next to it.

Nothing changes inside the archive

An archive opened this way is read-only. The status bar of the pane says Read-only archive, and if you try to rename, delete or add something inside, Folia Files refuses and tells you that the archive opened read-only. To work with a file, copy it out:

• drag it to another pane, the Desktop or any Finder window: dragging out of an archive always copies;
• or select it, press ⌘C, go to a folder and press ⌘V.

With two panes side by side, this is quick: the archive on the left, the destination on the right, and you pick only the files you need.

What happens behind the scenes

To be precise about "without extracting": Folia Files does unpack the archive once, but into a temporary folder of its own, not next to your download. Nothing appears in Downloads, the ZIP itself is never modified, and the temporary copy is removed automatically when you no longer use it. If the contents would take more than 2 GB once unpacked, Folia Files asks before opening it. Files taken out of a downloaded archive keep the "downloaded from the internet" mark, so an app copied out of it is still checked by macOS the first time you open it.

If you prefer the old behaviour, the switch is in Settings › Files and Network › Previews and Archives: turn off Open archives like folders (zip, 7z, rar, tar, iso…) and archives open with the Archive Utility again.

Peek inside with the space bar

Sometimes you don't even want to open the archive, just glance at it.

Inside Folia Files, select a ZIP and press the space bar, or look at the Preview module of the right sidebar: you get the list of files with the total size once extracted. From there, Extract All… unpacks everything, or select a few lines to extract only those.

In the Finder, Folia Files also installs a Quick Look extension. Select a ZIP or TAR archive and press the space bar: the preview shows the files it contains, in Mail and other apps too. If you'd rather keep the previews that come with macOS, turn the extension off in System Settings › General › Login Items & Extensions › Quick Look. For formats the extension doesn't read itself, such as 7z or RAR, macOS shows its own preview as usual.

Which method to choose

• A quick look before unpacking: space bar on the archive (Finder with the Folia Files extension, or Folia Files itself).
• One file out of a large archive: open it as a folder in Folia Files and drag that file out, or use unzip archive.zip "path/inside" -d destination in Terminal.
• A script or a remote Mac over SSH: unzip -l and zipinfo -1.
• Everything, as usual: double-click in the Finder, or Extract Here in Folia Files.

All of this works in both editions of Folia Files, the one from the website and the one from the Mac App Store.