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.

Answer 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    

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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

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

Answer 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?

Answer 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

Answer 6

Mac Archive Utility will unzip the file into:

/Volumes/"Your Drive Name"/.TemporaryItems/folders.501/Cleanup At Startup/"Random Name

E.g.: BAH.odJFh"/"archiveName"

Then go ahead and start the un-archive and wait until you get the error, then leave the dialog box open. Open terminal window. sudo su cd to the path above, remember you can type /Vo and hit tab to finish the word get as far as you can and do a ls to see what the ramdon directory names are change into the final directory where all your files are. then type mv * /Volumes/"Drive Name"/.... where you want to put files/. now change read write on the folder of where you moved it to including all items.

Finally click OK on the first error. You must wait to click ok on the error until after the files are moved because the OK erases all the files.

Answer 7

You could use a .tar.gz archive. The default Mac Archive Utility will decompress them; just double click on the file. But I didn't see a way to force it to use .tar.gz when you compress it.

I'm not familiar with Macs; I just happen to have one near my desk at work. The Archive utility might have some GUI frontend somewhere in /Applications/utilities.

If there is no GUI, compress a folder into a .tar.gz use this command: tar czvf myarchive.tar.gz MyPhotos/

Answer 8

You may be lucky trying a data recovery software. If your JPEG files have a negative compression rate and ZIP is smart enough to store them uncompressed in that case, it is possible that scanning the zip archive gives results.