WinZip on MacBook not unzipping

clearancer

I purchased WinZip in 2019 when I bought my MacBook. Used it every week for work until 2021. Didn't receive any zipped files for over a year. Two weeks ago, dusted off the MacBook and WinZip won't unzip. Can anyone help?

Sandtree

Why use WinZip rather than Mac's built in ability to unzip zip files? 

Find the file in Finder, double click (or if that's an issue then right click and choose Open With and Archive Utility). A new folder will be created in the same folder as the Zip with the name of the Zip and the contents of the zip will have been extracted into that new folder. 

400ixl

What version of MacOS are you running?

The ability to unzip files has native in MacOS for a while now so you shouldn't need Winzip as the archive utility app should be able to do it for you.

It sounds like it maybe that the file extension association for zip files has been lost. If you find the file (on the desktop, or in Finder) then right click on it and select the Open With option in the dropdown menu you should see the default app for zip files. If it is not Winzip for you then you should see it in the list and you can select it from there.

It could be the file is corrupt or the Winzip app is corrupt (if it is the default but doesn't open known good zip files).

clearancer

I moved from PC to Mac in 2019 and I guess I stuck with what I knew. At the time I was getting two or three zip files a week, and WinZip had worked great for years. I did unzip the new file with the inbuilt Mac utility. Thanks for the info.

Sandtree

clearancer said:

I moved from PC to Mac in 2019 and I guess I stuck with what I knew. At the time I was getting two or three zip files a week, and WinZip had worked great for years. I did unzip the new file with the inbuilt Mac utility. Thanks for the info.

Windows itself has had support for dealing with Zip files since 1998

clearancer

Sandtree said:

clearancer said:

I moved from PC to Mac in 2019 and I guess I stuck with what I knew. At the time I was getting two or three zip files a week, and WinZip had worked great for years. I did unzip the new file with the inbuilt Mac utility. Thanks for the info.

Windows itself has had support for dealing with Zip files since 1998

I didn't make myself clear, apologies. The company I was working with required that files were sent to them using WinZip. Its so long ago, I can't even remember why they specified WinZip (I started working with them in 2001). I kept on using it for all my freelance work because it was reliable.

Sandtree

clearancer said:

Sandtree said:

clearancer said:

I moved from PC to Mac in 2019 and I guess I stuck with what I knew. At the time I was getting two or three zip files a week, and WinZip had worked great for years. I did unzip the new file with the inbuilt Mac utility. Thanks for the info.

Windows itself has had support for dealing with Zip files since 1998

I didn't make myself clear, apologies. The company I was working with required that files were sent to them using WinZip. Its so long ago, I can't even remember why they specified WinZip (I started working with them in 2001). I kept on using it for all my freelance work because it was reliable.

We've all had to do things because employers have said and that's often because someone told them when they started and they've just never challenged it plus certainly if you work in some industries updates to operating systems were very slow coming... was using NT4 with one client in 2009!

In most cases the recipient would have no idea if you had zipped with Windows, Mac or WinZip. In the beginning WinZip did support a few things that Windows didn't, like password protected Zip files, but these days not sure that WinZip has any function that the OS dont naturally support - you may prefer an interface or such though. The likes of 7Zip have a slightly better reason for being these days as they support more archive formats than just zip and can split archives over multiple files... the downside is that some a proprietary meaning the only work if the recipient uses the same software.

Jenni_D

I find that 7zip compresses better than the (Windows) inbuilt zip utility - smaller compressed file size without loss of info. No idea if 7zip is available for Mac though as I've never used one.