Why can't my MacBook Pro unarchive .zip files?

Not sure if useful, but I've discovered Terminal will unzip things that the OS won't - ie my twitter/X archive.

open Terminal, type "unzip" and a space, then drag and drop .zip file onto terminal. It unzips into your user home folder.

The only way I got my twitter archive opened and working, and I tried a lot of things. Also downloaded STUFFIT EXPANDER as another test, and that Worked also.

Hope this may help someone.

Hi mnguyen95

I too had the same problem when I updated my Mac OS. I tried to unarchive files with errors and these were files that were in my download folder previosly successfully unarchived for other projects. I tried the same process on my daughter Mac Air and it worked fine. So I concluded that the issue was with my MacBook Pro and profile. So I created another user profile with full rights and logged in with that user, re- dowloaded the Archived files, tried to un-archive and installed the software and it successfully worked and with previous fils. I logged out and switched back to my profile and the new software from the archive file worked fine Now I'm no MAC exspert but it seems to me somehow that my profile ACL security somehow got corrupted thus causing the issue. I'll look into this later but for now at least I have a fix....

mnguyen95 wrote:

Hello Everyone!

For some reason, I am unable to unarchive any files downloaded. I just recently updated MacOS to Sonoma 14.3.1, I am not sure if that is the issue but please advise me on any way to get the unarchive function to work again! I have tried using Archive Utility, The Unarchiver, and I have tried using Terminal but they have not worked since recently, they used to all work before.

My MacBook used to be able to unarchive files by simply just clicking on the .zip folder and it will create a new unarchived folder with all the files.

Universal— ie all .zip files?

Make a compressed file your self and then un zip it to test your Archive Utility... seems this would be telling, no?

Hard to test with no example to try...

Maybe the file/folder/.zip is corrupt some how and no matter what you do(?)

try https://www.keka.io/en/

I experience as well issues with large and downloaded zip-files. As far as I can tell the files have been packed a while ago (some video download from an online course, several GB in size). The same file get's easily unzipped on my old Intel mac, but throws this "corrupted" error on Sonoma 14.4.1 (an M2 Ultra). Looks like it was something about the underlying hardware or the systems the zip-files got created on..

Zipping folders on Sonoma and unzipping again of course works.

Folders zipped on the Intel Mac and copied to the M2 Mac can be unzipped without an issue. So maybe the downloaded zip-files have been zipped on Windows hosts ? I don't know if I can find out just by examining the file itself. Would be nice to get some hints on the varieties of zip-files and why some of them are unzippable on a new M2-Mac.

Max OS X High Sierra wouldn't unzip my twitter (X) archive after repeated attempts. Downloads were fine, but error trying to unzip.

I had to use the Terminal and it worked. Open Terminal window and enter command "upzip" then a space, then drag and drop the .zip file into the terminal and hit return. Unzipped files are in your user home folder by default, so look for them there.

I had tried everything and this is what worked ...

By default Safari will open known safe files such as .zip files which will extract their contents and the original .zip file will be deleted. So your files may already be extracted.

mnguyen95 wrote:

Any resolve for your issue mnguyen95 ...(?)