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Avoiding Stuffit's Corrupt Zip Files

TMO Quick Tip - Avoiding Stuffit's Corrupt Zip Files

by , 7:30 AM EST, January 23rd, 2006

Despite the fact that Stuffit Deluxe and Stuffit Expander are capable of opening more archive types than most people are even aware of, sometimes these tried-and-true Mac tools get things wrong. If you use Stuffit to expand files that are compressed with the .Zip format, you may find that your uncompressed files are damaged and unusable. Try double-clicking the .Zip file instead, and let the Finder uncompress it for you.

Mac OS X 10.3 and 10.4 can create and expand .Zip files in the Finder, and in most cases are capable of expanding the .Zip archives that Stuffit just can't handle.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject: Stuffit is a Dinosaur

We really don't need StuffIt anymore. Stop using the .sit format. We should just all stuff it in the trash.

Close Name:mahuti -   TMO Staff Posts: 377 Joined: 09 Jan 2003
Subject: The only thing stuffit is good for...

The only thing Stuffit is good for is compressing fonts. I mean, in this day and age, who really takes time out to compress files to store them. Sure stuffit makes things a little smaller than zip, but it causes me way more headaches. I can't tell you how many times I've received a stuffit file only to find out that it's supposedly corrupt, ie. a new version of Stuffit has come out and my current version is to stupid to report that. It would be nice if they made things a little more obvious like that.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Thank you !!!!!

Thank you for posting that I should use the default unzip utility in the OS. I have been trying all day to recover all my work from the past year of college after I zipped it up to move it and it would always crash using Stuffit Expander. (It always gave me either a -1309 or -40 error depending on what program i was using.)

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