StuffIt Expander

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StuffIt Expander

Developer(s)	Smith Micro Software
Stable release	16.2 / December 21, 2020 (2020-12-21)
Operating system	Classic Mac OS, macOS, Windows
Type	File Extractor/Decompressor
License	Freeware
Website	Stuffit Homepage

StuffIt Expander is a proprietary,

The latest version for each Mac platform is as follows:[1]

• 16.2 for
  OS X 10.11
  + (as of December 2020);
• 16.0.5 for
  Mac OS X 10.8
  +;
• 15.0.7 (2011) for
  Mac OS X 10.6.8
  +;
• 15.0.4 (2011) for
  Mac OS X 10.5
  +;
• 14.0.1 (2010) for
  Mac OS X 10.4
  +;
• 10.0.2 for
  Mac OS X 10.3
  +;
• 8.0.2 for Mac OS X 10.0+;
• 7.0.3 for Mac OS 8.6+;^[2]
• 6.0.1 for Mac OS 8.1+ (PowerPC only);
• 5.5.1 for
  System 7.1
  + (68020 and up, PowerPC);
• 4.5 for System 6+ (compatible with all 68k processors).

StuffIt has been a target of criticism and dissatisfaction from Mac users in the past as the file format changes frequently, notably during the introduction of StuffIt version 5.0. Expander 5.0 contained many bugs, and its file format was not readable by the earlier version 4.5, leaving Mac users of the time without a viable compression utility.

The latest

From versions 7.5.x to 11 the Expander capabilities were actually performed by the StuffIt Standard Edition, that allowed decompression even after the end of the trial period. To start StuffIt in Expander mode the following command line switches were used: -expand -uiexpander.^[3] Note that the registration reminder dialogue box is not shown in this case. With older versions of StuffIt Expander on the classic Mac OS platform, such as StuffIt Expander 3.5, it was possible to enhance the capabilities of StuffIt Expander and to add support for decompressing additional archive formats by means of the shareware DropStuff with Expander Enhancer software from Aladdin Systems.^[4]

There is also a

StuffIt Expander 2009 decompresses files in the following formats:

• .cb7
  )
• AppleSingle
  (.as)
• Arc (.arc)
• ARJ (.arj)
• BinHex (.hqx), all versions
• BTOA (.b2a, .btoa)
• bzip2 (.bzip, .bzip2, .bz, .bz2, .tbz, .tbz2, .tar.bz, .tar.bz2)
• CAB (.cab)
• Compact Pro (.cpt)
• gzip (.gz, .tgz)
• LHA (.lha, .lzh)
• LZMA
  (.lzma, .tlzma, .tar.lzma)
• MacBinary (.bin, .macbin), all versions
• MIME/Base 64 (.mime)
• Private File (.pF), Aladdin's encryption file format
• .cbr
  , .partNN.rar), including segmented
• SpaceSaver StuffIt compression format used in versions prior 5.x
• StuffIt (.sit, .sitx, .sit.N, .partNN.sitx, .sea, .exe) v1.5.1 to 8.0.x, including encrypted, segmented and self-extracting archive (Classic Mac OS file type code 'SIT!')
• .cbt
  )
• Unix
  Compress
  (.Z, .z, .taz)
• UU (.uu, .uue, .enc), PC/Unix 8 bit to 7 bit encoding similar to BinHex (.hqx)
• yEncode (.ync, .y)
• .cbz, .exe), including encrypted, Zip64, segmented and self-extracting archive