This is Keka's first appearance as a Mac Gem.
#Review keka for mac archive#
If you need more options than Apple's default ZIP compression and expansion tool, routinely work with a variety of formats, or occasionally need the oddball expansion of an archive you've never seen before, Keka neatly fills all those needs. The website maintains versions for download that are compatible dating back to MacOS X 10.4. The App Store fee and direct donations made through the website support the app's ongoing development. Keka is free when downloaded directly from the developer's website and $4.99 via the Mac App Store. Keka requires a separate app to set it as the default application for archive extraction and file decompression.
Instead, create a new compression document via File New, enter and verify a password, and then compress the file or files.
#Review keka for mac password#
The only missing piece from Keka is offering a prompt for a password when compressing in a file format that supports it, like ZIP. Conversely, Keka can assemble sequentially numbered archive segments created using standard methods. Even with the speed and storage of the modern internet, you may still balk at requiring people download a monolithic 50GB archive and prefer to offer 50 numbered downloads of 1GB each. This requires using a supporting format, but several allow this, such as ZIP, bzip2, and gzip. Keka has a feature that at one time was absolutely necessary, as I mentioned earlier, but can still be helpful today: you can set it to break archives into chunks of a specific size. You can pick a default format for compression and set a huge number of other preferences that fit your requirements. Select one or more files and right-click to choose Keka Compress to or Keka Compress to Here: the first option lets you pick a destination the second leaves the resulting file archive in the same folder as the sources items. You can also grant permission to a Finder extension to invoke Keka from the Finder via a right-click. It prompts for additional options that require intervention, like selecting a file name and destination. and it builds a file archive (if necessary), then compresses the file into your default format.
#Review keka for mac how to#
Those with specific requirements in creating archives can dial in just what they want those who receive a file or archive and are trying to extract it into a usable format need to know almost nothing to proceed except how to drag and drop or double-click.ĭrag files or groups of files onto Keka's Dock icon. Keka also manages the neat trick of having a deeply technical purpose, and yet being usable without special training.
First released in 2009, the app continues to mature, and the developer adds formats and additional features on a constant drumbeat. Keka is a perfect partner for any Mac owner's needs for file archiving and extraction. Email offers endless ways to ruin file attachments in transmission, and compressed file archives typically bypass those problems. We live in modern times, but file archives for organization, proper transmission without loss, compression, and encryption still abound for those who use desktop computers and server systems. When bulletin board systems and the nascent internet let us upload files, the low speeds and scarce storage meant every bit-not just byte-counted. Long ago, we compressed, sliced, and diced large document files and applications, stuck them on series of 1.44MB floppies, and passed them around. Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide