Today's Daily App eliminates the need to search for and install just the right utility for accessing that certain client's stubborn archive files. The Unarchiver for Mac OS X is a free tool for 10.6 and later that can handle any Zip, RAR, TAR, Gzip and just about any compression scheme out there, including older Mac and Windows formats like DiskDoubler, LZH and Stuffit. It can even open Amiga files as well as ISO and BIN disc images and some Windows EXEs.

Built by independent developer Dan Agren, The Unarchiver is designed to be "a much more capable replacement" for Apple's default Archive Utility.app, according to the developer's Web page, and it works in much the same way when set as the default archive handler in its Preferences panel or the Finder. For foreign-language files, it even attempts to detect and convert file name encoding and displays a preview of the result as it works.

The Unarchiver works entirely in the background and handles scores of file formats. A full list of supported protocols is displayed in its Preferences panel along with file associated extensions, and each can be individually disabled.

PUBLISHED OCT. 10, 2012