StuffIt Expander is a proprietary,

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

closed source Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and inte ...

, decompression software utility developed by Allume Systems (a subsidiary of

Smith Micro Software Smith Micro Software, Inc., founded in 1982 by William W. Smith, Jr., is a developer and marketer of both enterprise and consumer-level software and services. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Smith Micro maintains multiple domestic and ...

formerly known as Aladdin Systems). It runs on the

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. Prior to 2011, a

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

version had also been available for download. The latest version for each Mac platform is as follows: * 16.2 for

OS X 10.11 OS X El Capitan ( ) () is the twelfth software versioning, major release of macOS (named OS X at the time of El Capitan's release), Apple Inc.'s desktop and server (computing), server operating system for Macintosh. It focuses mainly on perform ...

+ (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 Mac OS X Tiger (version 10.4) is the 5th major release of macOS, Apple's desktop and server operating system for Mac computers. Tiger was released to the public on April 29, 2005 for US$129.95 as the successor to Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Som ...

+; * 10.0.2 for Mac OS X 10.3+; * 8.0.2 for

Mac OS X 10.0 Mac OS X 10.0 (code named Cheetah) is the first major release of macOS, Mac OS X, Apple Computer, Apple's desktop and server operating system. It was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of $129 after a Mac OS X Public Beta, public beta. Mac ...

+; * 7.0.3 for

Mac OS 8.6 Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7, approximately six years before. It places a greater emphasis ...

+; * 6.0.1 for

Mac OS 8.1 Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7, approximately six years before. It places a greater emphasis on ...

+ (PowerPC only); * 5.5.1 for

System 7.1 System 7, codenamed "Big Bang", and also known as Mac OS 7, is a graphical user interface-based operating system for Macintosh computers and is part of the classic Mac OS series of operating systems. It was introduced on May 13, 1991, by Apple Co ...

+ (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 stand-alone version for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

is 2011 (15.0). Unlike the version before it (12.0), which was only able to decompress the newer (and ZIP) archives, version 2009 claims to be able to decompress over 30 formats, some listed below. The executables require both, the .NET v2.0 framework and MSVC 2008 (9.0) runtimes. The previous stand-alone version able to decompress and other

-specific archives was 7.02, distributed with StuffIt v7.0.x for

. 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: . 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. There is also a

command line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

application called UNSTUFF v1.1 that allows decompression of files. StuffIt Expander 2009 decompresses files in the following formats: *

7-Zip 7-Zip is a free and open-source file archiver, a utility used to place groups of files within compressed containers known as "archives". It is developed by Igor Pavlov and was first released in 1999. 7-Zip has its own archive format called 7z, ...

(, ) *

AppleSingle AppleSingle Format and AppleDouble Format are file formats developed by Apple Computer to store Mac OS "dual-forked" files on the Unix filesystem being used in A/UX, the Macintosh platform's first Unix-like operating system. AppleSingle combined b ...

() * Arc () *

ARJ ARJ (Archived by Robert Jung) is a software tool designed by Robert K. Jung for creating high-efficiency data compression, compressed file archives. ARJ is currently on version 2.86 for MS-DOS and 3.20 for Microsoft Windows and supports 16-bit, 3 ...

() *

BinHex BinHex, originally short for "binary-to-hexadecimal", is a binary-to-text encoding system that was used on the classic Mac OS for sending binary files through e-mail. Originally a hexadecimal encoding, subsequent versions of BinHex are more similar ...

(), all versions *

BTOA Ascii85, also called Base85, is a form of binary-to-text encoding developed by Paul E. Rutter for the btoa utility. By using five ASCII characters to represent four bytes of binary data (making the encoded size larger than the original, assuming ...

(, ) * bzip2 (, , , , , , , ) * CAB () *

Compact Pro Compact Pro is a software data compression utility for archiving and compressing files on the Apple Macintosh platform. It was a major competitor to StuffIt in the early 1990s, producing smaller archives in less time, able to create self-extract ...

() *

gzip gzip is a file format and a software application used for file compression and decompression. The program was created by Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler as a free software replacement for the compress program used in early Unix systems, and in ...

(, ) * LHA (, ) * LZMA (, , ) *

MacBinary MacBinary is a file format that combines the two ''forks'' of a classic Mac OS file into a single file, along with HFS's extended metadata. The resulting file is suitable for transmission over FTP, the World Wide Web, and electronic mail. The do ...

(, ), all versions * MIME/Base 64 () * Private File (), Aladdin's

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can decip ...

file format * RAR (, , , ), including segmented * SpaceSaver StuffIt compression format used in versions prior 5.x * StuffIt (, , , , , ) v1.5.1 to 8.0.x, including encrypted, segmented and

self-extracting archive A self-extracting archive (SFX or SEA) is a computer executable program which contains compressed data in an archive file combined with machine-executable program instructions to extract this information on a compatible operating system and wi ...

(Classic Mac OS file type code 'SIT!') *

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bit ...

(, , , , ) * Unix

Compress compress is a Unix shell compression program based on the LZW compression algorithm. Compared to more modern compression utilities such as gzip and bzip2, compress performs faster and with less memory usage, at the cost of a significantly l ...

(, , ) * UU (, , ), PC/Unix 8 bit to 7 bit encoding similar to BinHex () *

yEnc yEnc is a binary-to-text encoding scheme for transferring binary files in messages on Usenet or via e-mail. It reduces the overhead over previous US-ASCII-based encoding methods by using an 8-bit encoding method. yEnc's overhead is often (if ea ...

ode (, ) * ZIP (, , , ), including encrypted, Zip64, segmented and

References

External links

Current Stuffit homepage, with links to download Mac and Windows versions
{{Compression Software Implementations Classic Mac OS software MacOS archivers and compression-related utilities Data compression software Freeware