Keka

Keka compresses and extracts archives in far more formats than the Finder knows about. Drag files onto its window or Dock icon to build a 7z, Zip, Tar, Gzip, or Brotli archive; open almost anything, including RAR, to extract it.

Why it makes the list

It is the free, native, no-nonsense replacement for a separate unarchiver plus a compressor, without the ads and bundled junk that plague this category elsewhere. Encryption is real AES-256, split archives are supported, and it never phones home.

Standout features

• Create 7z, Zip, Tar, Gzip, Bzip2, XZ, and Brotli archives

• Extract RAR, Zip, 7z, Tar, Lzip, ISO, DMG, and many more

• AES-256 encryption, with encrypted file names for 7z and Zip

• Split archives into volumes for transfer

• Exclude macOS resource forks for clean cross-platform archives

• Set it as the system-wide default extractor

Pricing

Free when downloaded from keka.io. $6.49 on the Mac App Store if you would rather get updates there and support the developer.