If you’ve used The Unarchiver, Keka, or any other Mac archive utility before, Purrchiver will feel immediately familiar — drop an archive on the icon, files come out. What’s new is how few steps it takes to do anything, and the fact that no ad ever pops up when you’re done.
This page walks you through the three things you’ll do most often.
The first thing you’ll see
When you open Purrchiver for the first time, you see the Welcome window:
From here you have three ways forward:
- Drop an archive onto the window — it opens immediately.
- Drop one or more loose files onto the window — they start a new archive (Staging).
- Click one of the cards if you want to pick from a file dialog instead — or use
File → Open Archive…(⌘O) /File → New Archive(⌘N).
That’s it. There’s no first-launch tutorial, no signup, no account, no welcome video. The Welcome window IS the tutorial.
The three core concepts
Purrchiver does three things. Once you know these, you know the app.
1. Open an archive
Drop a .zip (or .rar, or .7z, or any of the 30+ supported formats)
on the Purrchiver dock icon — or double-click it in Finder — and the archive
opens in a dual-pane window:
- Left pane: your filesystem (the same kind of folder view Finder shows).
- Right pane: the archive’s contents.
You can preview, sort, search, and select. Nothing has been extracted yet — just listed.
2. Extract files
To get files OUT of the archive:
- Drag entries from the right pane to the left pane (or to a Finder window).
- Or click Extract… in the toolbar to extract everything to a folder you choose.
- Or right-click the archive in Finder and pick Services → Extract using Purrchiver — each selected archive extracts to its sibling folder.
static/images/help/extract-drag.gifMore detail: Extracting files.
3. Create or modify an archive
There are two ways to make an archive:
- Compress files into a new archive: drop files onto the Purrchiver dock icon (when no archive is open), or use the New Archive card in the Welcome window, or use the File → New Archive menu (⌘N).
- Modify an existing archive: open it, click the Edit button
(pencil icon) in the toolbar or press ⌘E. The window switches into
Edit mode where you can add files (drag in), remove entries
(
−button on selected rows), and save as a new archive (which can overwrite the original, or save as a copy).
The Edit workflow is one of Purrchiver’s biggest features. See Editing an existing archive for the full story and the v1.0 limitations (no rename, no reorder, no tar-family yet).
Where things live in the app
| Where | What’s there |
|---|---|
| Welcome window | App icon + Open / New cards inside a drop zone — your starting point |
| Loaded window (after opening an archive) | Dual-pane Browse (read-only) with toolbar Extract… and Edit (⌘E) buttons |
| Edit mode (after pressing Edit / ⌘E) | Same dual-pane shell, but drops add entries and rows can be removed — save via Create Archive |
Staging window (after dropping loose files or ⌘N) | Build a new archive — drop in or + Add Files…, then Select Options & Create Archive |
| Toolbar | Archive name, format, size, Search, Extract…, Edit (browse) / Create Archive (edit + staging) |
| File menu | Open Archive (⌘O), New Archive (⌘N), Extract All (⌘⇧E), Close (⌘W) |
| Settings… (⌘,) | General, Compression, File Types, Finder Integration, Advanced, About |
| Help menu | The help book you’re reading now (⌘?) |
What happens when you’re done
Nothing. No popup. No ad. No banner. No “rate this app” prompt. No share sheet. When an extract or compress finishes, the progress bar transitions to “Done” in the same window — and that’s it.
If you’d like a system notification when long operations finish, turn it on in Settings → General (it’s off by default). The notification is a normal, quiet macOS notification — no sound, no preview.
Next steps
- Opening an archive — every way to open one
- Extracting files — single files, batches, drag promises
- Creating a new archive — format choices, compression, encryption
- Editing an existing archive — the modify-in-place workflow
- Keyboard shortcuts — the complete reference