Introduction
XZ is a lossless data compression algorithm that is sometimes used in the Linux world. XZ archives are limited to containing just one file; more often than not, TAR algorithm is used to bypass this limitation, creating TAR.XZ archives. Actual XZ archives are uncommon due to the aforementioned limitation, but they do exist. Still, most people prefer to use archive formats that can store multiple files, such as ZIP. There are many ways to convert your XZ files to ZIP, but the easiest one is to use a converter program or a website. Unfortunately, this answer doesn’t narrow things down all that much, since many such converters exist. So, which one should you use? What is the best XZ to ZIP converter for Mac? You can find out the answer by reading this short article.
What is the best XZ to ZIP converter for Mac?
WinZip Mac
The best XZ to ZIP converter on Mac is undoubtedly WinZip. It is a powerful archive manager program that is available on both Mac and Windows. It supports many archive file formats, including XZ, and has many powerful features. It allows you to view files inside archives without extracting them, protect your archives with a password, and upload them into cloud. The Pro version also includes support for making file backups and automatically adding watermarks. But even if you aren’t interested in these features, you should know that WinZip Mac can be used to extract XZ files and convert XZ to ZIP. The process is both simple and fast, which is why WinZip is the best XZ to ZIP converter for Mac.
CloudConvert
There are several websites online that can convert XZ to ZIP. We do not truly recommend any of them, as they have many issues. The most obvious one is privacy; you should not use these sites to convert archives containing sensitive data. The conversion will also take longer, especially if you have a slow internet connection. Nonetheless, these websites may be useful under some circumstances.
CloudConvert may very well be the best converter website out there when it comes to archives. It can convert both XZ and TAR.XZ archives to ZIP, and offers several useful features. For example, it provides you with an option to specify the archive’s password, which allows you to convert encrypted archives. It is also worth noting that CloudConvert can be used to convert archives up to 1 GB in size, which is fairly generous as far as free websites go.
Converting the archive manually
One simple way to convert XZ to ZIP on Mac, as well as on Windows, is to do it manually. That is to say, unpack your XZ archive into a folder, then compress the resulting folder as a ZIP archive. Any specialized program will essentially perform the same steps, so it is not necessary to use a dedicated converter app.
Also, consider this: if you are trying to convert XZ to ZIP so that you could extract it afterwards, creating a ZIP archive is not necessary at all. You can simply extract the XZ file itself and be done with it.
Conclusion
The best XZ to ZIP converter for Mac is a program called WinZip Mac. It works with other formats as well; for example, it can convert RAR to ZIP.
If you don’t want to install a program, you may use a website to convert XZ to ZIP instead. However, these websites have limited functionality and obvious privacy issues. You may also convert your archives manually.