Because applications tend tobe very large files, they come in a compressed form that takes up less space andmakes downloading them faster and easier. You need StuffIt for use with compressed files. That application is StuffIt Expander.įigure 4.4 When the download is finished, StuffIt Expander goes to work. You might have noticed that the downloaded files launch another application whose icon appears briefly in the Dock, as shown in Figure 4.4. Learn More Buy Opening Compressed Files with StuffIt Expander That Smith Micro continues to develop and support Stuffit Expander - and continues to offer it for free - should be evidence of its value to anyone with a half-way open mind.Sams Teach Yourself Mac OS X in 24 Hours, 2nd Edition Just because you don't need it doesn't mean that no one will. Unfortunately for Smith Micro, the market is also limited.īe that as it may, to put it politely it's short-sighted to dismiss Stuffit Expander out of hand. That market model was not really viable, though, so the trial period for Drop Stuff's successors is limited. Surprisingly, however, you could use Drop Stuff indefinitely in demo mode - and it was fully functional. Because hard drive space was severely constrained at the time, such a market did, indeed, exist.

In 'the old days' the free Stuffit Expander was supposed to cultivate a market for the paid product Drop Stuff. I think they're back now with Stuffit Deluxe - though at $50 the price is daunting. Rather than making it more appealing, they just created brand name confusion. Unfortunately they goofed a while back when they renamed it Stuffit Destinations. I give Smith Micro props, though, for making the effort to keep the product alive. It includes some tools that a select clientele will find useful, but it no longer has broad appeal on the Mac. Smith Micro picked up the Stuffit franchise some years ago and has been striving to make the product relevant by expanding its capabilities.

On these occasions I find Expander quite indispensable. Nevertheless, I still occasionally encounter archive files in a format that OS X cannot handle. So Stuffit Expander gradually became less important than it once was - and the old Drop-Stuff went the way of the Dodo.

Meanwhile, Disk Utility can create a variety of different image files. And self-decompressing dmg files became the most common disk image file format for transmitting Mac software and archiving files. But at some point in the evolution of OS X, I don't remember when, the OS gained the ability to compress and uncompress zip archives. Stuffit Expander was indeed indispensable when it was included with all Mac OS installations.

Stuffit expander for mac