# Unzip - ANYTHING There are ***so many*** formats out there that are either fancy folders, or fancy compressed files. And so many of those you can extract useful information from! Or you can extract not-useful info from them! A lot of my knowledge has come from exploring files like this and also [[Breaking the Rules - Opening Files in Alternate Apps|with text editors]]. # Easy Method The easiest method in my opinion is to setup an app like [The Unarchiver](https://theunarchiver.com/) and then just drag and drop your file onto that application, either in your dock, in Finder, or [[Finder Toolbar - Custom Apps|pinned in your Finder Toolbar]]. ## Interesting Filetypes Some comments on filetypes I've found this knowledge useful for! ``` Your milage may vary, terms and conditions apply. Offer not valid in all 50 states. See store for details ``` #### PDF, PPTX You can easily extract images, video, etc from presentations and documents. > This was very helpful when I was an animator and we'd get sent powerpoints as design files. And in some cases it's easier to just figure it out than to explain to someone why that's a bad way to share files. #### 3mf If you want to look at the config or files in a 3D model without being able to get to your slicer? Just extract the files and take a look! #### Adobe Project files Usually have the actual project XML inside a tar file. There's some tricks you can do to downgrade project files by manipulating this file and then re-saving it! #### Minecraft Files - .mcpack This one is obviously more specific, but very useful if you're looking to make mods or understand how resource packs work! #### macOS Installers - .pkg There are [[macOS - Investigating Packages and Apps|better ways to investigate these]], but before I knew those existed this was one way I explored how pkgs worked! # My Old Method The other way you can accomplish this is to just rename the existing file to `.zip` or `.gz` and then you can just double click it and open it in the native Archive Utility. This works pretty well, but sometimes will fail, and the basic Archive utility is ***a lot more picky*** about the files it will decompress.