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What is “__MACOSX” folder I keep seeing in Zip files made by people on OS X?

Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 2026204580 views
Confidence Score1%
1%

Problem

What are these folders I keep seeing in Zip files made by people on OS X? Some take as much as 30% of the file. What program are producing these folder and how can mac users avoid this mistake?

Error Output

__MACOSX

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Fix for: What is “__MACOSX” folder I keep seeing in Zip files made by people on OS X?

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Here's a link that explains it pretty well. I suppose it is a bit late to help Yada, but for posterity. Explanation of “Resource fork” at Wikipedia The rest is my opinion: @nickf: Never seeing these files is not a FEATURE of those OS X versions it is a FLAW. People produce data, wrap it up, store it on different mediums and so on. They need to know what is needed or what is not needed. Hiding it keeps them in the dark. The age old bad idea of hiding things from users: A programmer, concerned wi…

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