Archiver

Compress and extract every common archive format from inside Seiz. No separate app, no subscription, no surprises.

What is the Archiver?#

Most people think of archives as “.zip files” and that's where their knowledge ends. The reality is messier: you receive a .7z from a friend, a .tar.gz from a server, a .rar from someone's old hard drive, and none of them open with a double-click. So you download Keka, then The Unarchiver, then wonder why opening one file required two installations.

Seiz handles all of it. Right-click an archive to extract it, right-click some files to compress them, pick from any common format. There's nothing to install, no app switching, and the safety guards (path traversal protection, encrypted headers for 7z) are on by default.

Compressing Files#

Select one or more files (or a whole folder), right-click, and open the Compress submenu — pick the format you want. The archive is created in the background — for large folders you'll see progress in the status bar — and the new file appears in the same folder when it's done.

The formats#

Seven compression formats to choose from:

  • ZIP — the universal default. Works on every operating system. Seiz uses macOS's built-in ditto tool, which preserves Mac-specific file metadata (resource forks, custom icons, extended attributes) — something most other ZIP tools quietly throw away.
  • TAR — common on Linux servers. Bundles files together without compressing them.
  • TAR.GZ / TAR.BZ2 / TAR.XZ — TAR with three different compression algorithms. GZ is fastest, XZ compresses the most, BZ2 is in between.
  • TAR.ZSTD — modern compression, very fast and very efficient. Only available if you have the zstd tool installed (most people don't — install it via Homebrew if you're curious).
  • 7Z — the best compression ratio of the common formats, and the only one with built-in password protection. Use this when file size matters or when you need encryption.

When to pick what

For sending files to non-Mac users, pick ZIP. For your own backups where size matters, pick 7Z. For sharing with developers or Linux users, TAR.GZ is the default they expect. Everything else is a power-user choice you'll know if you need.

Password-protected archives#

Choose 7Z as the format and you'll see an optional password field. Filling it in encrypts both the file contents and the file names — meaning someone who picks up the archive can't even see what's inside without the password. (Many other tools encrypt only the contents but leave the file list visible. Seiz doesn't.)

Pick a password you'll remember. There's no recovery — that's the point of encryption.

Extracting Archives#

Right-click any archive and choose Extract Here — Seiz extracts into the current folder. It handles every common archive type automatically by reading the file extension; there's no “what kind of file is this?” prompt.

Supported for extraction: ZIP, TAR (and all the compressed variants — gz, bz2, xz, zst), 7z, and RAR. RAR support uses a Homebrew-installed extraction tool if you have one (7zz, 7z, or unrar — most Mac users with Homebrew already have at least one of these).

If the archive is password-protected, Seiz prompts you for the password. Wrong password, try again — nothing gets extracted.

Path-traversal protection is built in

Some malicious archives contain files with names like ../../../../etc/passwd — designed to escape the destination folder and overwrite files elsewhere on your system. Seiz checks every extracted file's final location and refuses to extract any archive that tries this. This protection runs on every archive, even ones from trusted sources, because there's no downside.

Next Steps#

  • SmartFolder — find duplicate archives and the biggest files eating your disk.
  • BatchRename — rename a folder full of files before zipping them up.
  • Multi-Pane Layouts — extract on one side, drag files into the other.
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