Unzipping Password Protected Zip Files in OS X

In PC land, password protecting a zip file is fairly common. In OS X land, it’s not.

So what happens when you try to unzip a .ZIP file in OS X that has a password on it? OS X fires up its Archive utility and errors out with this:

(Error 1 - Operation not permitted)

Wonderful.

So what do you do?

Open up a Terminal session (it’s in the Utilities folder in Applications) and run this:

# /usr/bin/unzip [filename].zip

That will prompt you to enter a password and inflate its contents fine =)

I’ve also tested OS X compression apps: UnRARX and iArchiver.

On a side-note, Stuffit Expander will prompt for the password as well

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