| The Unarchiver | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Original author | Dag Ågren |
| Developers | Circlesoft, MacPaw[1] |
| Initial release | September 2006; 19 years ago (2006-09) |
| Stable release | 4.3.8[2]  / 16 May 2024 |
| Operating system | macOS,Linux usingGNUstep libraries, and command line only onMicrosoft Windows,Linux,macOS |
| Available in | 18 languages |
List of languages English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Latvian, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Turkish | |
| Type | File Extractor / Decompressor |
| License | Proprietary since acquisition[3] FormerlyLGPLv2.1-or-later |
| Website | theunarchiver |
| Repository | |
The Unarchiver is afree[3]data decompression utility, which supports more formats thanArchive Utility[4] (formerly known as BOMArchiveHelper), the built-in archive unpacker program inmacOS. It can also handle filenames in variouscharacter encodings, created usingoperating 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 obscureMac OS Classic andAmiga archive formats, includingStuffIt,Compact Pro,AmigaOS disk images, andLZH/LZX archives. The source code creditslibxad, 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]
The Unarchiver, version 1.1 was publicly introduced to the world in September 2006 by Finland-based MacOS software developer Dag Ågren to run onMac OS X 10.4 Tiger.[7][8] Ågren's last public release was version 3.11.1 that was released in May 2016 forMac OS X 10.3.9 Panther and higher[9]
The Unarchiver wasfree software licensed under theLGPL, 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]
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 forMac 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 forMac OS X 10.9 Mavericks.[18]
The most recent version, 4.3.9, was released in March 2025 forMacOS 10.13 High Sierra or later.[19]
The corresponding command line utilitiesunar andlsar arefree software licensed under theLGPL[20][21] run onMicrosoft 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]
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 requiredMac 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 forOS 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 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]
