Drag a file. Hold Shift.
Drag any file on your Mac and hold Shift: crop a photo, edit a video, merge or compress a PDF, convert Word, slides or sheets, or unzip. All on your Mac.
The short answer
A free app, or one drag
A zip opens with a double-click on any Mac. A .7z or .rar is where people get stuck. The Unarchiver is a free app that opens them. Koi opens them too, with one drag, and turns them into a zip if you need one.
We make Koi, so read this with that in mind. Everything about Koi here is what version 1.12 does. The Unarchiver's details come from its own site and its Mac App Store page, checked October 20, 2026.
The Unarchiver
Open 7z and RAR with The Unarchiver
- Get The Unarchiver from the Mac App Store. It's free, by MacPaw.
- Control-click the .7z or .rar, choose Open With, then The Unarchiver.
The Unarchiver handles RAR, including locked and split archives, 7z, and dozens of other formats. Several look-alike apps on the App Store have similar names, so check it's the one from MacPaw.
Koi
Open 7z and RAR with the Shift wheel
- Start dragging the archive in Finder or on your desktop.
- While you're still holding it, press and hold Shift. A wheel opens round your pointer.
- Drop it on Extract. It unpacks into a folder named after it, beside it, and shows in Finder.
- It opens .zip, .tar, .tar.gz or .tgz, .gz, .tar.bz2, .tar.xz, .7z and .rar, with bsdtar, the archive tool built into macOS.
- Drop it on ZIP, TAR or GZIP instead to repack the same files, so a RAR becomes a zip anyone can open.
- Drag several archives at once and each one is done.
- Nothing inside is opened or run. What's unpacked keeps the downloaded mark, so macOS still checks an app from it before it runs.
- An archive with a file leading out of its folder, more than 100,000 files, or more than 20 GB unpacked is refused before anything is written.
- A password-locked archive is left alone. Use The Unarchiver for that one.
The other way round
Zip a folder or a pile of files
Drag a folder, or several files, with Shift held, and the wheel offers ZIP, TAR and GZIP. Drop it on one and the archive lands beside them, “Photos.zip” or “Archive.zip”. Finder's own Compress makes a zip as well: Apple's guide. More on the Shift wheel.
Price
What it costs
The Unarchiver is free. Koi has no free plan: Pro is $20 a month, or $192 a year, after a 3-day free trial that needs a card. Lifetime is paid once, from $59. The Shift wheel uses no AI, so it never counts against Koi's usage. See the plans.
Keep exploring
How to compress a PDF on your Mac
Compress a PDF on a Mac without uploading it: Preview's Reduce File Size filter, or drag it with Shift held onto Koi's Compress. Light, Balanced or Strong.
How to convert Excel to CSV on your Mac
Convert an Excel file to CSV on a Mac without Excel: export it from Numbers, or drag it with Shift held onto Koi's CSV. Every sheet at once, on your Mac.
A photo and video toolbox, one Shift key away
Koi's Shift wheel: drag any image or video on your Mac, hold Shift, and compress, crop, redact or convert it, or trim and edit a video. Nothing is uploaded.
Support
Frequently asked questions
The Unarchiver is free on the Mac App Store and opens them. With Koi, drag the RAR with Shift held and drop it on Extract.
Yes. With Koi, drag it with Shift held and drop it on ZIP. The same files are repacked as a zip beside the original.
Koi never opens or runs what's inside, refuses archives that try to write outside their folder, and keeps the downloaded mark on what it unpacks, so macOS still checks an app from it before it runs.