There are five ways to open an archive in Purrchiver. Use whichever fits the moment — they all land you in the same place: a Loaded session with the archive’s contents in the right pane.
1. Double-click in Finder
If Purrchiver is set as your default app for the archive format, just double-click. Purrchiver opens with the archive loaded.
To make Purrchiver your default for a format:
- Right-click the archive file in Finder.
- Choose Get Info (⌘I).
- Expand Open with, pick Purrchiver, and click Change All….
You can do this once per format (one for .zip, one for .rar, etc.).
2. Drag onto the dock icon
Drag an archive (or multiple archives) onto the Purrchiver icon in the Dock. Each archive opens in its own tab.
3. Drop onto the Purrchiver window
If Purrchiver is already open (showing the Welcome window or another archive), drop an archive anywhere in the window. The behavior depends on the current state:
- Welcome window: the first dropped archive loads in place; additional archives open as new tabs.
- Another archive already open: every dropped archive opens in a new tab. Your current session is preserved.
This is the fastest way to compare two archives — drop both, then ⌘⇧] / ⌘⇧[ to cycle tabs.
4. File menu → Open Archive…
Or ⌘O. Standard macOS file picker opens, scoped to formats Purrchiver supports.
The picker shows a format filter so you can quickly find, say, only
.zip files in a folder of mixed content.
5. Finder right-click → Services
Right-click an archive in Finder and look under the Services submenu (you may need to scroll). Purrchiver registers three items:
- Open in Purrchiver — smart dispatch; opens this archive in Browse mode (this page’s behavior). Also handles mixed Finder selections — multiple archives go into Batch Extract, anything else opens in a new Compress staging window.
- Extract using Purrchiver — force-extract. Pulls files OUT to the archive’s sibling folder. Available only when every selected item is an archive.
- Compress using Purrchiver — opens a Staging window with the selection pre-loaded as files-to-compress. Click Create Archive in the staging footer to pick a format and create.
If you don’t see the Services submenu, enable the items under System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Services → Files and Folders.
More on Finder integration: Finder integration.
Opening a multi-part archive
For .partN.rar, .r00/.r01/…, .7z.001/.002, or any other split set —
point Purrchiver at any one of the parts. It will scan the parent folder,
find the rest of the set, sort them in order, and open them as a single
archive. You don’t need to select them all.
See Multi-part archives for the full story.
Opening an encrypted archive
If the archive is password-protected, Purrchiver shows a password prompt before listing the contents:
Passwords stay in memory for the open session only — Purrchiver doesn’t persist them between launches.
See Encrypted archives for password best practices.
What if Purrchiver doesn’t recognize the file?
Sometimes a file with an archive-shaped name isn’t actually an archive — it
might be a Windows installer (.exe), a Mac disk image (.dmg), or a corrupt
file. In each case Purrchiver tells you exactly what it found:
- “This file is a Windows installer (.exe), not an archive. Purrchiver doesn’t open Windows installers.”
- “This file looks like a disk image (.dmg). Open it directly in Finder to mount it.”
- “This file’s header doesn’t match any format Purrchiver recognizes. It may be corrupt or use an unsupported format.”
See Common errors for the full list.
What Purrchiver doesn’t open
- StuffIt (
.sit/.sitx) — abandoned format. See StuffIt files for what to use instead. - Disk images (
.dmg/.isoas bootable) — those are mounted, not extracted. Finder handles them natively. - Windows installers (
.exe) — not archives in the relevant sense. - ACE / ARJ — proprietary and effectively unmaintained.
Format support has the complete read/write matrix.