View Zip File Contents With a Shortcut on a Mac

[@loisskiathitis8926]

A very useful and informative video tutorial today! Thank you, Gary! 👏🏻❤️

[@sundaynightdrunk]

Really cool to see this today after commenting (asking actually) on the possibility of creating a password-locked zip file using Shortcuts just yesterday. This really taught me something in that it can be run from the "right-click" context menu instead of invoking a Shortcut separately. Cool stuff. I need to find some time to mess around with Shortcuts. It's really powerful and people have created some really handy things.

[@Slurkz]

Stellar stuff! Thanks bunches. 💜

[@ipersuade]

I'm always looking for a quick way to do this. Thanks!!

[@universalvideoes]

please also make video on "zip -er" using shortcuts. i mean we can directly zip a file and encrypt using quick action

[@woodturnermoose]

Good stuff, Gary. I would recommend putting the $1 in double quotes “” in case there are spaces in the path or the file name. It bugs me a bit that the zip -l and grep -v shows me 4 files in your example but zipinfo says there are 8… but I can’t think of a workaround for that at the moment 😀 I always learn new stuff from you videos, especially about using shortcuts. Thank you!!

[@JandeBloois1952]

Useful as always, Gary! Thanks!

[@Philipk65]

That was a very interesting tutorial and handy info to know, thanks Gary.

[@binface9]

Brilliant. Thank you Gary.

[@KeyframeHolder]

Amazing tip! Thank you!

[@desertpatient]

Thanks bunches

[@DirkKuepper]

It gives me the idea to check in the future how this can be combined with Keka :-)

[@briandewald621]

Fantastic!

[@snsokstan1]

When I follow the video, there's one glitch (I am in MacOS Sonoma now): in the Run Shell Script module, I see "shortcut input" as a pick for the Input box. However, if I pick it, "shortcut input" shows up for a moment and then disappears. So the shortcut doesn't work off the Services context menu.

[@Federaik]

Really nice, I love how you present things simply yet thoroughly, by the way, the compress menu option in finder is quite limited, do you think it would be possible to have a Shortcut that takes the selected files in the finder, asks you the filename for the zipfile to produce and then compresses them? By adding these video's steps it could also display the stats of the newly compressed file in quicklook. Keep up with your amazing work!

[@Federaik]

I managed to create a shortcut with the following chain of actions Receive -> Make Archive -> Save File but I struggle getting the path where to save to from the Shortcut Input, I tried to Get the First Item and then extract the file path but I get an error, tried to save it into a variable, didn't work. The Shortctuts Actions are really not well documented... or maybe I am not looking in the right place.

[@macmost]

Keep experimenting. I don't know off the top of my head, but all I would do is to keep trying things.

[@christopherfugle6592]

superb!

[@JandeBloois1952]

Hi Gary. The shortcut worked fine by right-clicking on a ZIP-files, and use the Shortcut. But now it only works from within the Shortcut itself. I get a 'fault' message, saying 'error: cannot open zipfiles [path], Operation not permitted. unzip: cannot find or open /Users/ etc. etc. How can I resolve this?

[@macmost]

Sorry, I don't know what the issue could be. Perhaps it has to do with the folder the file is located in? Experiment and see if different locations produce different results.

[@alfredoborras1860]

thank you for this video, but for any strange reason zip -l doesn't work and I can not do anything. Any idea? zip error: Nothing to do! zipinfo works fine

[@macmost]

Perhaps an issue with the file you are choosing? Try another one or make a new one to try it with.

[@intervalia]

When I run unzip from the terminal it works fine. BTW you can use -v instead of -l to get the summary. When I run the shortcut from inside the Shortcuts app it works fine. But when I try running it using right click -> Quick Actions and select the shortcut then I get the following error: "Run Shell Script finished with an error. error: cannot open zip file [ path_to_file ] Operation not permitted. unzip: cannot find or open path_to_file, path_to_file.zip or path_to_file.ZIP." I also tried turning on 'Run as Administrator'. and it still fails.

[@macmost]

Sounds like a problem with the path maybe? Hard to tell. You'll have to continue to try things and debug it.

[@opezdol]

I'd offer to add .DS_Store filtering like grep -vE '__MACOSX|.DS_Store'

[@GozoAya]

Hi Gary - very useful! On a different topic - is it possible to create a shortcut to Password Protect an existing PDF document? I know I can open a PDF in preview, select file/edit permissions, but then I have to tick a box, enter the password four times into the form to achieve the protection. This is quite tedious for actions that we repeat frequently.

[@macmost]

Not really. What's your use case? Why do you need to do this so often you need a shortcut?

[@GozoAya]

@@macmost Hi Gary! Thanks for the quick response!! We run a medical practice. We receive many patient PDF documents, and before we file them we like to password protect them for confidentiality. The patient files are shared on DropBox for access by involved practice members. We also scan many printed documents we receive, and these are also saved as PDF documents which have to be protected. We use the same password for all documents. Just thought there might be a way to automate the task!

[@macmost]

@@GozoAya Interesting. Though I think any security you are adding is very much compromised by the fact you are using the same password for them all. Why not just make sure your devices and storage solutions are properly protected? What would happen now if that one password would slip out? You'd have to change the password on every single document. I know there are industry-specific services for storing and sharing documents you can use instead. I know when I get info from my doctor I need to log into a web service with my account ID/password to access them.

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

I appreciate your UNIX skills in and around piping, teeing, group-regular-expression, etc., but I am flummoxed with respect to some file permissions and I wish you would do a tutorial on setting up permissions to access a remote Ventura Mac, so that I can r/w files to folder under a different user. Why ? I sometimes need to drop and modify files on my wife's Mac book from my Mac Studio, two different Macs, two different users. I have been partially successful. I sense it has to do with setting permissions along a tree, meaning recursive setting. What stimulated this thought was watching you use terminal and dragging a file or folder. Doing that to a connected remote MAC and using the ls -l command helps to provide insight into file protection. I guess I could use chmod recursively, but I was hoping for a built in GUI solution using finder/info.

[@macmost]

Why not just add her as a user to your Mac. Then switch to that user when you need to work with her files. Either through iCloud or networking.

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

@@macmost I am a user on her MacBook and I have permission for some trees. She gave r/w permissions to my account, but the gui finder/info-> … has the options greyed out that I thought would allow for tree walking for some folders such as pictures

[@pedropuckerstein4670]

This is networking not cloud, I will try chmod with recursive option using her login. I also need to see who owns the folders in question. We both have admin priv Anyway the whole concept for inexperienced users of files permissions groups ownership and the x bit could cause confusion.

[@haydnhorne8092]

Love the KZbin Brain set Gary for this Zip fix it it is a shame We can not save some space from users MACOSX etc thank you Gary your my favourite Geek 🎉😊 that was a funny compliment please don’t be offended .A smile stops the face wrinkles 😊

[@grzegorzwojtas7314]

I’m still wondering why it is not possible to just go into the zip file in a similar way to Windows. It would be so easier to look into the files and extract only the selected one.

[@guna14146]

Because Apple. They just can't do things like everyone else 🤷.

[@macmost]

Many third-party apps will do this. If it is something you need, just get one.

[@grzegorzwojtas7314]

@@macmost I know, but it would be great to have it built in. It’s so simple.

[@RORVS]

👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@TheLadyaec]

It's telling me no such job and command not found. Got to call apple.