sure-unpack

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Two commands for packing and unpacking archives. unpack identifies the format from file headers and extracts it. pack creates archives in the format you specify.

No need to remember whether to use tar, unzip, or 7z, or what -xzf, -xJf, -czf, -d, -o means for which tool. Just unpack <file> and pack <dir>.

Install

brew tap ChunzhengLab/tap
brew install unpack

See homebrew-tap for details.

unpack

unpack [OPTIONS] <ARCHIVE> [DEST]
unpack sniff <FILE>...
unpack list <ARCHIVE>

Examples

unpack project.tar.gz              # → ./project/
unpack archive.zip -C /tmp         # → /tmp/archive/
unpack mystery.bin                 # auto-detect from file header
unpack sniff mystery.bin           # what format is this file?
unpack list project.tar.gz         # preview contents without extracting
unpack project.tar.gz --here       # extract into current directory
unpack --dry-run project.tar.gz    # show what would happen
unpack --format tar.gz mystery.bin # override all detection

Options

-C, --into <DIR>         Extract into specified directory
    --here               Extract into current directory (no subdirectory)
-o, --overwrite          Allow overwriting existing files
    --format <FMT>       Override format detection (e.g. tar.gz, zip, 7z)
    --dry-run            Show what would happen without extracting
-v, --verbose            Show detailed output
-l, --list               Same as 'unpack list'

pack

pack [OPTIONS] <SRC> [OUT]

Examples

pack mydir/                        # → mydir.zip (default format)
pack mydir/ output.tar.gz          # format from extension
pack mydir/ output.7z              # 7z archive
pack file.txt output.gz            # single-file compression
pack mydir/ output.tar.lz4         # tar + lz4
pack -f tar.gz mydir/              # explicit format
pack --dry-run mydir/              # show what would happen

Options

-f, --format <FMT>   Output format (e.g. zip, tar.gz, 7z)
    --dry-run        Show what would happen without packing
-o, --overwrite      Allow overwriting existing output file
-v, --verbose        Show detailed output

Rules

• Default format is .zip when no output path is given
• --format and output extension must agree, or an error is raised
• Directories cannot be packed into single-file formats (.gz, .bz2, .xz, .lz4, .zst) — use the matching .tar.* variant instead

Supported Formats

Format	unpack	pack	Backend
.tar .tar.gz .tgz .tar.bz2 .tbz2 .tar.xz .txz .tar.lz4 .tar.zst	yes	yes	tar / lz4
.zip	yes	yes	unzip / zip
.7z	yes	yes	7z / 7zz
.rar	yes	—	7z / 7zz
.iso	yes	—	7z / 7zz
.gz	yes	yes	gunzip / gzip
.bz2	yes	yes	bunzip2 / bzip2
.xz	yes	yes	xz
.lz4	yes	yes	lz4
.zst	yes	yes	zstd

Defaults

• Auto subdirectory: unpack extracts multi-file archives to ./<archive-stem>/, not the current directory.
• No overwrite: both commands refuse to clobber existing files. Use -o to override.
• Header sniffing: unpack reads the file header to identify the format, even when the extension is wrong or missing.
• Missing tool reporting: clear error message naming the missing tool and the format it handles.