StuffIt Expander a simple utility to expand archives, was a standard third party add-on for all Macs up until Mac OS X 10.4, Tiger. StuffIt quickly became the de facto standard for compressing and archiving files in Mac OS, especially in 1990s when we had relatively limited and expensive disk storage. Recall that Raymond Lau developed StuffIt in 1987 and Aladdin Software was formed to market it. My next step was to figure out the chronology of the company, Aladdin, and the technology. And then, of course, my next thought was, mindful of the Snow Leopard upgrade I just did on some fairly new Macs, "What if a day comes, because of technical developments, that I can no longer open those archives? Will the current version of StuffIt Expander work all the way back to the beginning of StuffIt technology? What tools might I need to keep current? I decided to find out. A search with PathFinder showed that I had 2,882. That got me curious about how many StuffIt archives I had accumulated over the years. had also been encrypted, maybe by another app.was missing a needed resource fork (from Mac OS 9 and early Mac OS X days).So it appeared that I may have had a file that: sit files and they "unstuffed" just fine. So I dragged the archive to Stuff Expander 12, the latest version I had, and got this error message:Īnnoyed, but not alarmed, I did some investigating. The other day, I was working with some very old financial archive files on my Mac. Even so, looking back in time can be the real issue. Even though StuffIt is in wide use in certain circles, many home users aren't planning a future with it. Government and university archivists worry about it a lot and so should you. All Rights Reserved.Data migration into the future is one of those things that Mac users should think about from time to time. This means that when you double click the file it will open in the correct application (assuming, of course, that you have an application able to open the kinds of files you expanded.)Ĭopyright © 2003 Aladdin Systems, Inc. In addition to expanding the contents of a zip archive from a PC computer, StuffIt Expander will also automatically translate the file extension of a Windows file into a Macintosh type and creator code. If you are exchanging files with a Windows user, StuffIt Expander can help to make the files you receive ready for use on your Macintosh. Tip: If you have questions about the files resulting from expansion from a StuffIt archive the best advice we can offer is that you contact the person who posted or sent you the files to find out what program is needed to open them. While StuffIt Expander can help you to open the compressed, archived, or encoded files you download from the Internet you will still need an application installed on your Macintosh to view, edit, or otherwise work with the files you have expanded. In order to protect your privacy StuffIt uses very secure encryption algorithms which have no ÒbackdoorÓ. If you do not have the correct password you will not be able to access the files stored in an encrypted archive. StuffIt Expander will prompt you to provide the password before the files are expanded. On occasions you may receive archives that have been encrypted with a password. If it cannot be expanded, StuffIt Expander may, in some cases, present a dialog offering more information about what program might be needed to open the file. Even if the file you want to expand doesn't have a StuffIt icon, drag and drop it onto StuffIt Expander to see if it can be expanded. Note: Even if the Mac OS does not recognize that a file can be expanded by StuffIt Expander, you may still be able to expand it. You can expand more than one file by dragging multiple items onto StuffIt Expander, and you can also expand larger groups of files by placing them in a folder and dragging the whole folder onto StuffIt Expander. Double-clicking the file you want to expand will not work in many cases. This drag and drop method is highly recommended. You can also expand files with StuffIt Expander by dragging files into the StuffIt Expander application window. StuffIt Expander is easy to use! To expand a file with StuffIt Expander, simply drag and drop the file you want to expand onto the StuffIt Expander icon. Using StuffIt Expander Using StuffIt Expander®
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