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The Unarchiver

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The Unarchiver
Original authorDag Ågren
DevelopersCirclesoft, MacPaw[1]
Initial releaseSeptember 2006; 19 years ago (2006-09)
Stable release
4.3.8[2] Edit this on Wikidata / 16 May 2024
Repository
Operating systemmacOS, Linux using GNUstep libraries, and command line only on Microsoft Windows, Linux, macOS
Available in18 languages
List of languages
English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Turkish
TypeFile Extractor / Decompressor
LicenseProprietary since acquisition[3]
Formerly LGPLv2.1-or-later
Websitetheunarchiver.com

The Unarchiver is a free[3] data decompression utility, which supports more formats than Archive Utility[4] (formerly known as BOMArchiveHelper), the built-in archive unpacker program in macOS. It can also handle filenames in various character encodings, created using operating system versions that use those character encodings.[5] The Unarchiver does not compress files.[6]

A key feature of The Unarchiver is its ability to handle many old or obscure Mac OS Classic and Amiga archive formats, including StuffIt, Compact Pro, AmigaOS disk images, and LZH/LZX archives. The source code credits libxad, an Amiga file format library. Utility author Dag Ågren reverse engineered the StuffIt and StuffIt X formats. His work resulted in one of the most complete open source implementations of these proprietary formats.[citation needed]

History

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Open source era

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The Unarchiver, version 1.1 was publicly introduced to the world in September 2006 by Finland-based MacOS software developer Dag Ågren to run on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger.[7][8] Ågren's last public release was version 3.11.1 that was released in May 2016 for Mac OS X 10.3.9 Panther and higher[9]

The Unarchiver was free software licensed under the LGPL, up to version 3.11.1 (released 2016).[10] This version, and the versions prior to the buyout, are still available for download from Dag Ågren's original website.[11] The Unarchiver version 3.11.1 provided a free-software implementation of extraction of RAR versions up to RAR5.[12][13]

Closed source era

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Ukraine-based MacPaw purchased The Unarchiver and related software technology from Dag Ågren in July 2017 for an undisclosed sum.[14][15] MacPaw released version 4.0.0 in June 2018 for Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and higher.[16] Version 4.1.0 was released in February 2019.[17] Version 4.3.5 was released in May 2022 for Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks.[18]

The most recent version, 4.3.9, was released in March 2025 for MacOS 10.13 High Sierra or later.[19]

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unar and lsar command line utilities

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The corresponding command line utilities unar and lsar are free software licensed under the LGPL[20][21] run on Microsoft Windows, Linux, and macOS.[22]

Ågren released version 1.0 of the command line utilities in March 2012.[23] Ågren's last public release was version 1.10.1, which was released in May 2016.[24] MacPaw performed minor fixes and bumped the version up to 1.10.7 by April 2020.[25]

The Archive Browser

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In March 2012, Ågren released version 1.0 of The Archive Browser, a finder-like program that can browse inside almost any archive which can be opened by The Unarchiver, on the Mac App Store as a commercial program that required Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or later.[26] Ågren's last public release was version 1.11.1 that was released in May 2016 for OS X 10.7 Lion and higher[27] Although, MacPaw acquired The Archive Browser in 2017, MacPaw did not further develop this technology and eventually dropped its distribution by mid-2020.[28]

Archives

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Archives is an iOS version of The Unarchiver. Version 1.0 was released in October 2012 by Dag Ågren as a commercial product.[29] Ågren's last public release was version 2.1 that was released in May 2016.[30] MacPaw performed minor fixes and released version 2.1.1 via the Mac App Store in October 2018. Version 2.1.1 is the most recent edition.[31]

References

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  1. ^ "MacPaw acquires The Unarchiver Mac app, will keep it updated & free". 9to5Mac. 27 July 2017.
  2. ^ "The Unarchiver | Top Free Unarchiving Software for macOS". Archived from the original on 29 July 2024. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
  3. ^ a b "End User License Agreement (EULA) for MacPaw Products. Disclaimer and Limitations". MacPaw.com. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  4. ^ Popescu, George (19 August 2013). "The Unarchiver – A Better Way to Decompress Archives". Softpedia. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  5. ^ Seff, Jon (7 May 2013). "Mac Gems: The Unarchiver is a free, robust file-extraction utility". Macworld. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  6. ^ Fenton, William (18 June 2014). "The Unarchiver (for Mac)". PC Magazine. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  7. ^ Ågren, Dag. "The Unarchiver v1.1". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 13 October 2006.
  8. ^ Ågren, Dag. "wakaba.c3.cx". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 18 September 2006.
  9. ^ Ågren, Dag. "The Unarchiver v3.11.1 for Workgroups". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 21 May 2016.
  10. ^ "The Unarchiver source code from 2016 is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1". 12 May 2011.
  11. ^ "The Unarchiver".
  12. ^ Smith, Brett (10 May 2011). "Another High Priority Project done: The Unarchiver provides free RARv3 extraction tools". Free Software Foundation. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  13. ^ "The Unarchiver changes". The Unarchiver. Archived from the original on 6 July 2017.
  14. ^ Degtiarenko, Igor (27 July 2017). "MacPaw acquires The Unarchiver and commits to making it even better". MacPaw. Retrieved 18 February 2024.
  15. ^ Vlasenko, Valerie (31 July 2017). "Finnish Unarchiver Acquired by Ukrainian MacPaw". ArcticStartup.
  16. ^ "The Unarchiver". MacPaw. Archived from the original on 11 June 2018.
  17. ^ "The Unarchiver". MacPaw. Archived from the original on 28 February 2019.
  18. ^ "The Unarchiver". MacPaw. Archived from the original on 19 May 2022.
  19. ^ "The Unarchiver". MacPaw. Archived from the original on 20 March 2025.
  20. ^ "Unar and Lsar - Command Line Tools for The Unarchiver". The Unarchiver. MacPaw. Retrieved 18 February 2024., including The Unarchiver source code from 2016.
  21. ^ "MacPaw/XADMaster is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1". MacPaw. 21 March 2018. Retrieved 1 June 2020 – via GitHub.
  22. ^ "Command line tools". The Unarchiver. MacPaw. Retrieved 2 March 2019.
  23. ^ Ågren, Dag. "Command line tools". The Unarchiver. Archived from the original on 25 March 2012.
  24. ^ Ågren, Dag. "Command line tools". The Unarchiver. Archived from the original on 17 June 2016.
  25. ^ Taykalo, Paul (8 April 2020). "Commit 9bda55e". MacPaw / unar – via Github.
  26. ^ Ågren, Dag. "The Archive Browser v1.0". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 29 March 2012.
  27. ^ Ågren, Dag. "The Archive Browser v1.11.1". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 1 June 2016.
  28. ^ "The Archive Browser". MacPaw. Archived from the original on 7 February 2020.
  29. ^ Ågren, Dag. "Archives v1.0". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 16 October 2012.
  30. ^ Ågren, Dag. "Archives v2.1". wakaba.c3.cx. Archived from the original on 8 June 2016.
  31. ^ "Archives: Opens any format". Mac App Store.
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