Extract large zip file (50 GB) on Mac OS X

Question

I was trying to move the files to another hard drive. So I archived all my photos in one large ZIP file using the Mac OS X built-in compress function.

But the file failed to extract. I've tried many programs, but none of the programs I tried were able to extract the file. I've tried Mac OS X's extract utility, StuffIt Expander, 7-Zip (command line), all failed. Mac's archive utility and StuffIt don't seem to support large files, and 7-Zip's command line version gave an error stating unsupported archive.

I have no luck in Windows either as many of my files have Chinese filenames, and couldn't extract to the correct name under Windows.

Are there some programs that can support large files, can handle files compressed using Mac OS X's compress function, and can support UTF-8 filename? With or without GUI is fine.

Update

Well, I had made the wrong decision to compress the files, and it's already too late. I thought I should be able to extract the file if I could compress it. It's too late, the original copies are gone, only a large ZIP file left here.

I have tried using 'unzip', but it says End-of-central-directory signature not found. I guess it doesn't have large file support as well.

I would try the Windows Vista method as stated by SuperMagic, but I need to borrow a computer for that. Anyway, thank you everyone, but please provide more suggestions on what software that could possibly extract that file.

Solution 1

I was in the same situation when backing up a 12GB directory.

I fixed it by using the ditto command which was readily available with the OS X Yosemite installation:

ditto -x -k file.zip dst-directory

-x to extract an archive    
-k Specifies it to be a PKZip archive instead of the default CPIO    

Solution 2

If you use Homebrew, you could install 7zip with: brew install p7zip.

You can then extract the file with: 7z x filename.zip.

Solution 3

I ran into this same problem recently, on OS X 10.6.6. I have been zipping my VMware VMs up at a command line, and copying them to backup media. When I tried to unzip a backed-up VM after a hardware failure, I had a few tense minutes as I wrestled with unzip's "start of central directory not found; zipfile corrupt" error.

After some poking around, the problem turns out to be that OS X ships with v3.0 of Info-Zip's zip, which supports the Zip64 extensions and uses them automatically when needed (so I was creating Zip64 files without realizing it), but only v5.52 of Info-Zip's unzip, which doesn't support Zip64 - Zip64 support was added in unzip's v6.0.

I have no idea why Apple didn't ship an unzip that matches the shipped zip, but I found two easy solutions:

1. MacPorts users can install unzip 6.0 using "sudo port install unzip".

2. The shareware archive utility BetterZip, which is a handy piece of software anyway, supports Zip64, so just by using that instead of the command line, I was able to extract my archived VM and continue my day.

Solution 4

I believe the ZIP file format has a 4 GB total archive size limit. Wikipedia seems to support this.

If you have a Windows Vista or more recent computer available, try exploring the archive there to see if it's in the newer ZIP64 format or not.

So it's possible that the ZIP64 support is different between what created the archive and what you're using to unzip it.

Also, is there an unzip command standard in the Mac OS X command prompt?

Solution 5

I had exactly the same problem... Zipped a file with the standard mac archive software... deleted the file... a month later tried to open the archive and got the same error --> Guess this has something with the fact that the file was over 1gb

SO I tried all and more of the software above and nothing worked after a few weeks of searching and trying I found one that worked :) So I guess this is worth mentioning:

The Unarchiver - I downloaded this from: http://wakaba.c3.cx/s/apps/unarchiver.html these people are my new hero's :) It has the necessary things for broken or to large zipfiles

View more solutions

Comments

[pion]

Note that assuming the photos were JPEGs then zip or any other lossless compression won't actually compress them much if at all. tar would be a good cross-platform choice if you just want to archive them into a single file to move them.

[Jeremy L]

The amount of time spent archiving all those was probably greater than simply copying them over as individual files.

[dtlussier]

Is this question still active? How did you create the 50 GB zip file in the first place? From the Finder or the command line on OS X?

[yanokwa]

yeah, you can try " unzip file"

[trolle3000]

Why downvote...?

[pion]

I didn't downvote, but you're not directly answering the question. Also note that gz is probably a waste of time assuming the images are JPEGs.

[hdx]

BetterZip solved my problem, thx!

[tripleee]

The dialog box interface seemed to work erratically but setting it up as the default application for zip files worked perfectly. Thanks for the tip.

[Ian Belcher]

This should be the accepted answer. No need to install extra software and works perfectly. I do a bit of work with modern.ie zipped VM's and this is by far the easiest and simplest method.

[Sandy Chapman]

I was getting errors for a large Zip file as well. I'd suggest adding The Unarchiver as an option too.

[ɲeuroburɳ]

Probably goes without saying, but port install p7zip if you use macports.

[luk2302]

Note the whitespace between the "7z" and "x", maybe you can insert a line break @tremby.

[tremby]

Really don't think that's necessary. It's in a monospace font. I'd have to escape the line break if I added one.

[Dave]

This is the best solution. I just used this to unzip a 14GB data file that 'unzip' would not process.

[Matt Sanders]

Just a note that p7zip (referenced in another answer) can open some large zip archives created by other platforms that ditto will read as corrupt.