Purrchiver uses standard macOS keyboard conventions. If you’ve used Finder,
Mail, or any other native Mac app, most of these will feel familiar.
Most shortcuts are remappable in System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts. Purrchiver doesn’t ship a custom shortcut UI —
macOS already has one. App Shortcuts remaps menu items by their exact
title, so the two shortcuts that live only on toolbar buttons —
⌘T (Test Archive) and ⌘⇧E (Extract all items) — aren’t remappable this way.
⌘E (View → “Edit Mode”), ⌘S (File → “Save”), and ⌘⌥S (View → “Toggle Pane
Mode”) all have menu-item equivalents, so they remap normally.
File
Shortcut
Action
⌘O
Open Archive…
⌘N
Create New Archive… (opens a Staging session)
⌘W
Close window (system default)
⌘,
Settings… (system default)
⌘Q
Quit Purrchiver (system default)
Working with archives
Shortcut
Action
⌘⇧E
Extract all items (only when an archive is loaded)
⌘⌥⇧E
Extract Selected…
⌘T
Test Archive (verify integrity without extracting)
⌘E
Toggle Edit mode (when an editable archive is loaded)
⌘S
Save edits to the current archive (Edit mode only)
View
Shortcut
Action
⌘⌥S
Toggle Pane Mode (single ↔ dual pane)
⌘F
Focus the search / filter field (handled by the active session view)
Window
Shortcut
Action
⌘0
Activity window (global job-queue monitor)
⌘`
Cycle through Purrchiver windows (system default)
⌘⇧W
Close all tabs in the current window (system default)
Select all entries (system default, inherited by the table)
⌘C
Copy in-archive paths to the clipboard
Space
Quick Look preview of the selected file (Purrchiver extracts the entry to a temp file, then shows it in Quick Look)
↑ / ↓
Move selection up / down one entry
Esc
Clear selection / cancel (or close the Quick Look preview)
In the filesystem pane (dual-pane left side)
Shortcut
Action
⌘↑
Go up one folder
Return on a folder
Enter that folder
⌘⇧.
Show / hide hidden files
In the Create Archive sheet
Shortcut
Action
Tab
Move to next field
⇧Tab
Move to previous field
Return
Create the archive (if the Create button is enabled)
Esc
Cancel and close the sheet
In the password prompt
Shortcut
Action
Return
Submit password
Esc
Cancel
Tips
⌘O is the universal entry point. From Welcome or from an open
session, ⌘O always opens an archive.
⌘N is for compress. Mnemonic: “new archive.”
⌘⌥S flips between single-pane (just the archive) and dual-pane
(filesystem on the left, archive on the right). The View menu
surfaces the same toggle if you’d rather click than remember the
shortcut.
⌘0 opens the Activity window — useful for keeping an eye on a
batch extract or several concurrent operations.
Remapping a shortcut
System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts.
Click +.
Pick Purrchiver from the Application dropdown.
Type the exact menu item name (e.g., “Open Archive…”).
Press your new shortcut.
Click Done.
The shortcut applies immediately, no relaunch required. This works for
any shortcut bound to a menu item — including ⌘⌥S (View → “Toggle Pane
Mode”), ⌘E (View → “Edit Mode”), and ⌘S (File → “Save”). Only the two
toolbar-button shortcuts (⌘T, ⌘⇧E) have no menu-item equivalent, so App
Shortcuts can’t rebind those.
