The best Keka alternatives for Mac

Keka is a file archiver for Mac. Per its site, it makes 7z, zip, tar, gzip, bzip2, xz, lzip, DMG, ISO, Brotli, Zstandard, LRZIP, AAR and WIM archives, and opens 33 formats, including RAR, ZIPX, CAB, MSI and APK. It encrypts 7z with AES-256, uses the older Zip 2.0 encryption for zip, and splits big archives into pieces. It runs on macOS 10.10 or later.

It's free to download from its site, or $6.49 on the Mac App Store. Keka says the two are the same app and buying it there supports the developer.

We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Koi isn't a Keka replacement for making archives: it makes zip, tar and tar.gz only, with no 7z, RAR, passwords or split archives. It opens the everyday formats from a drag, so it's on the list, but not near the top. Every fact about another app comes from its own site or its Mac App Store page, checked October 21, 2026. We didn't run tests or benchmarks.

• You want to look inside an archive, or take out one file, without extracting all of it.
• You want AES-256 on zips, not only on 7z. Keka's zip encryption is the older Zip 2.0 kind.
• You'd rather not drop files on an app's window or Dock icon each time.
• You only ever open archives, and a lighter app would do.

Keka is free, small and handles more formats than most people need. If you're happy with it, there's little reason to move.

1. Open Keka and choose 7Z as the format.
2. Type a password if you want the archive locked.
3. Drop the files or folder on Keka's window or Dock icon. The archive is saved where you chose.

1. Start dragging the folder, the files or the archive in Finder or on your desktop.
2. While you hold it, press Shift. The archive wheel opens round your pointer.
3. Drop a folder on ZIP, TAR or GZIP to pack it. Drop an archive on Extract to unpack it.
4. The new archive or folder lands beside the original and shows in Finder.

Step by step for 7z and RAR in our guide to opening 7z and RAR files on a Mac. More on the Shift wheel.

From each app's own site or Mac App Store page.

Keka is the better archiver, full stop. It makes 7z, locks it with AES-256, splits it, and opens more formats, and it's free. If you send encrypted archives or split big files, keep Keka.

Koi is for the everyday cases where opening an app is the slow part: zip a folder to email, open a RAR someone sent, turn a 7z into a zip for a Windows friend. One drag, and the result lands beside the original. The same wheel also compresses and merges PDFs, converts Word files and slides, and edits pictures and videos, and Koi itself types what you say in any app with dictation and keeps your documents on your Mac.

An archive can hide tricks: a file named to land outside the folder you extract into, millions of tiny files, or a few megabytes that unpack into hundreds of gigabytes. Any archiver you use should handle those, so it's worth knowing what yours does.

Koi checks before it writes anything. It refuses an archive with a name leading out of its folder, more than 100,000 files, or more than 20 GB once unpacked, counted as it unpacks rather than trusted from the archive's own headers. It unpacks into a scratch folder first and refuses links leading out of it. Nothing inside is opened or run, nothing it unpacks is left writable by others, and a downloaded archive's quarantine mark carries over, so macOS still checks an app from it before it runs. Whatever archiver you use, don't open an app from an archive you weren't expecting.

• Look inside first, AES-256 on zips, paid once? BetterZip 6.
• A polished app on macOS 26? Archiver 5.
• Only opening archives, locked ones included, free? The Unarchiver.
• Free and open source? PeaZip.
• Zipping folders and opening RAR and 7z from a drag? Koi.

See Koi's plans.